Board Presents 2021 and 5-Year Plans to the Membership

Strategic Plan

Board Presents 2021 and 5-Year Plans to the Membership

By AgGateway President and CEO Wendy Smith

The AgGateway Board of Directors has presented 1-year and 5-year plans for the organization to the membership, and is welcoming comments over the next few days (before final board review on October 13). The plans include strategic objectives for the months and years ahead, as well as a more detailed, tactical plan and budget for 2021.

A copy of the taped presentation is available to members on the AgGateway wiki, along with a space to post comments.

5-Year Strategic Plan (2021-25)

The goals of the 5-Year Strategic Plan can be summed up in three key words: Create, Engage and Grow.

  • Create refers to focusing on creating the resources needed to address the challenges we face in completing our mission. Specifically, we will engage members by developing resources to address the interoperability challenges faced by businesses in food, fiber, fuel and adjacent industries. Doing this will generate a steady stream of resources for our members to use.
  • Engage is making sure our key audiences are aware of those resources and how to use them, and are also participating in the creation of new valuable resources. Our goal is to increase participation in AgGateway activities through strategic communications, programs and engagement designed to ensure that executives and key decision-makers understand the benefits of engagement with AgGateway and the value of implementation.
  • Grow is our call to build membership and further engagement in AgGateway through strategic outreach to industry leaders and segments. We will seek to double membership and increase revenue by 50% by 2025 in order to expand the value of our members’ investment in AgGateway. This growth comes through increasing opportunities for member engagement.

There are several critical success factors that impact our ability to achieve these goals. We need:

  • Highly engaged and active board members
  • Highly aware and engaged member companies
  • Highly motivated and contributing volunteers
  • Highly skilled and knowledgeable staff
  • Flexible and responsive administrative support tools
  • Valued and active mutual relationships with associations and allied providers
  • A roadmap that supports the high-level milestones but is also flexible – we can adjust it to accommodate changes in the organization’s priorities.

2021 Plan and Budget

The 2021 plan sets specific goals and tactics around the 5-year themes to Create, Engage and Grow. There are three objectives as part of the 2021 plan:

  1. New Resources: Identify, prioritize, develop and publish 5 new resources addressing interoperability challenges. We will also develop a methodology to increase the rate of resource implementation by members.
  2. Strategic Communication: Create and execute the first year of a comprehensive, multi-year global plan focused on communicating to key stakeholders. This includes communicating AgGateway activities, resources, success stories and the value of membership.
  3. Increase Membership 15% by the end of 2021 through the addition of new voting members and improving retention of existing members. This objective supports our strategic goal to double membership and increase revenue by 50% by 2025 in order to expand the value of our members’ investment in AgGateway.

There are 12 tactics in the plan to execute these objectives, ranging from establishing new Working Groups and creating new resources, to creating targeted marketing materials and providing multi-lingual support, building on the brochures we recently published in Portuguese and Spanish. We’ll also implement a new member development plan, which will include a segmented approach in identifying high-priority prospects. We’ll focus on engaging new members, implement a plan to increase member retention, and improve our member management processes.

2021 Budget and New Dues Structure

For a full review of the proposed 2021 budget and new membership dues structure, we encourage you to view the presentation, posted on the AgGateway wiki.

Membership dues will be restructured in 2021 to create a single global dues structure for all members. Obviously, it makes a lot of sense for us to have a simple structure without multiple components. For example, we will no longer have regional or grain components to factor into dues. Dues will now be based on global sales revenue – and revenue is based on all sales, not just agricultural sales.

The simplified dues structure will make it easier for members and prospective members to know what their membership dues will be. Some members will see their dues increase but others will see their dues decrease. Any increase in dues will be stepped up over three years, and any decrease in dues will be stepped down over three years. Our goal is to keep membership dues flat for at least three years.

The AGIIS subscription fees structure will remain as is, which means AGIIS revenue tiers remain the same as they were in 2020; AGIIS fees remain flat. AGIIS SuperSupporters will become regular subscribers. We will revisit the AGIIS fees structure/rates in 2021 moving into 2022.

Feedback and Timing

We invite members to provide feedback on the on the AgGateway wiki. Based on the feedback and discussions with our Executive Committee, we will adjust the plan as needed prior to presentation to the board for approval on October 13. Once the final plan and budget are approved, we will send a general communication to the member’s primary contacts outlining the changes. Then we’ll send a detailed email to each member outlining how the changes will impact them and an estimate of their 2021 dues and fees. Finally we will share the approved plans and budget at the Annual Conference in November and publish the 2021 membership dues and AGIIS subscription fees.

We are excited about the plans for 2021 and the years ahead, and hope you share our enthusiasm as we work to develop the resources and relationships that drive digital connectivity in global agriculture and related industries.