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More Profiler Information
Profit Profiler Brochure
Features and Benefits
Profit Profiler Information Flyer
User Comments
Cost of Production Sample
''What If' Sample
Participant newsletter
How to enroll in Profit Profiler
For more details contact Bill Grexton at 1-800-549-4373 ext 254 or by email at bgrexton@canwestdhi.com
The following companies have been certified by CanWest DHI to offer Profilt Profiler to their clients. Their price may vary from DHI's retail price. Please contact them for details.
Eastern Ontario |
Western Ontario |
Western Canada |
Nova Scotia |
All Maritime Provinces |
The following individual Advisers have been certified by CanWest DHI to offer Profit Profiler to their clients:
Robert L. Ross
(519) 229-6595
St. Marys, Ontario
Tom Armstrong
(519) 942-0509
Orangeville, Ontario
Dr. Doug Bazinet
(204) 326-3955
Steinbach, Manitoba
Paul Crozier
CIBC
(613) 692-5095
Manotick, Ontario
If you are an Advisor certified to use this program, Click Here to Access the Advisor Information Page.
PROFIT PROFILER
Profit Profiler is a service that allows a dairyman to compare their business to a peer group of similar dairies. The service is available from CanWest DHI or from any certified advisor shown on the right of this page.
To assure the integrity of the information in database and the consistency of allocations to the enterprises, individual farms must use a certified advisor to have their data accepted.
Once their information is loaded, they may change goals or run new comparisons on their own. Ask your advisor about details.
BACKGROUND
Two questions face dairymen: "How do I compare to other progressive dairy businesses?" and "What would be the financial impact if I made a change in how I did things?" Answering these questions is the purpose of Profit Profiler.
Profit Profiler is a financial and production analysis tool that allows you to identify bottlenecks with the goal of improving your farms profitability. The service will evaluate a period of one year that corresponds with your financial fiscal year end. Projections will use that base and show the impact of change for another year. It will allow you to identify the measures that identify progressive profitable dairymen. Your business will be compared to other progressive dairy businesses of similar size, production level and/or geographic location. You can choose which group to compare your business to. Profit Profiler answers these questions:
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of my business?
• How do I compare with other progressive herds?
• How would my inventories, labor requirements, cropping, financial and profit picture be impacted if I changed.
• Provides a solution to expansion plans that may bog down because an accurate breakdown of the herd's current production, financial and profit picture is not available.
How does Profit Profiler work?
The dairyman needs to provide the requested financial, production and farm information. The program will calculate a over 140 benchmarks for your dairy business, compare it to the average of similar herds and provide you a ranking in 39 key measures compared to the peer group. The benchmarks combine financial, labor, livestock production and cropping results to show strengths and opportunities in costs and production of:
• Forages
• Grains
• Milk & Components
• Replacements
• Labor
The "What IF" option
Utilizing the "What If" option, you can see the financial impact of changing parameters such as production parameters, reproduction efficiency, udder health, replacement management or changing variable costs. The program will calculate the new cost of production based on these changes, cost of additional quota and give back a report which compares current profitability to expected profit after changes are made.
The "What IF" feature is a very powerful decision making and planning tool.
What do you get back?
The program provides three 1-page reports including a overview of the business financial health, a breakdown of the cost of production for Forages, Grains, Milk cows, and Replacements and a report comparing your farm with others on production parameters from crops, livestock and farm investments. For those who wish more detail, thwere is a detailed cost of production report available. Each report looks at the business from a different perspective. From the entire package you will be able to identify your production and financial strengths, and opportunities to improve profit.
Report 1 is an overview comparison of your business to the other businesses in the group. Whole farm profitability and economic ratios are compared. Some measures are:
• Total Variable Cost
• Total Fixed Cost
• Debt per kg Fat sold
• Financial ratios
• Milk sold per person
• P and I payments per kg Fat
• Costs and returns over costs expressed as per hl Milk or Fat sold and per person
• Cash available for debt and depreciation
Report 2 shows cost of production for Cows, Replacements, Forages and Grains. In addition you can compare the profitability of your "Dairy" business with your "Whole Farm" business. Some measures are:
• Forage cost per acre
• Grain cost per acre
• Cost to raise a Heifer
• Cow Cost per hl sold
• Cow Cost per kg Fat sold
• Actual Home grown feed cost
• Return over cost per HL
• Return over cost per kg Fat
• Cow & Replacement feed, health and labor cost as percentage of milk sales
• Total Milk Cow and Replacement cost as percentage of milk sales
• Profitability of the entire dairy enterprise as well as the whole farm business
Report 3 compares physical production numbers for each enterprise, investment, labor efficiency and shows you what percentage of your expenses is spent in crops, livestock, labor or debt. Some measures are:
• Acres fed per cow
• Forage cost per cow
• Performance of 1st Lactation animals
• Milk and Fat SOLD per cow
• Milk Revenue per person
• Percentage of Feed Purchased
• Return per cow or kg fat from milk cows only
• Enterprise comparison
• Comparison of your machinery, building and quota investment per cow to see how your peers have been investing compared to you.
What do you need to provide?
The program has a list of 107 measures needed from your financial, production and other farm records. If you can document it in electronic format, the program can receive it directly or if not, a paper form is provided.
As it is a comprehensive evaluation, the measures include acreages, crops, labor, assets, revenue, expenses and a breakdown of these income statement items into 4 enterprises. This is so actual costs and returns of each enterprise will allow more accurate projections.
Each analysis included a visit to your home to collect information and discuss results. The analysis takes about two to three hours to complete and a qualified DHI staff (or trained financial advisor) will assist you in collecting and editing the information. They will also take the time to go over the results with you and other advisors of your choice. While it is not always easy to get all the information, DHI will be there to assist you.
Quality and Confidentiality is KEY
All information is edited to be sure that only high quality data is used in the comparisons. In most cases some discussion occurs to make sure everything is entered correctly. This assures reliability in the results. All information is treated with extreme confidentiality with only approved personnel having access to it. Reports are identified only by a user code which you will be given when you enroll. Any future correspondence will use the user code provided. CanWest DHI will create benchmarks from the results from time to time but at no time will an actual farm business be used as an example. Averages will contain a minimum of 20 farms so as to render identifying any individual business impossible.
Value to the dairyman
Knowing how your business performs compared to other progressive dairymen is important. Seeing if you are progressing at the same rate as your peers is as important if not more so. Identifying your strengths (and more importantly) your weaknesses - which are your best opportunities to make significant improvement - may be the most important part of this analysis. Using the "What If" feature allows you to see the financial impact of improvements made in these areas - allowing you to see which change will have the greatest effect. Using Profit Profiler to identify bottlenecks and financial opportunities in your business can generate tens of thousands of dollars in improvements to the bottom line.
Value To the financial advisor
If you are a financial advisor, Profit Profiler has some advantages for you as well. Having a reference that identifies key benchmarks of overall business performance of progressive dairies is a valuable knowledge when consulting with clients. Other benefits include:
• Having these benchmarks broken out by percentiles will give you a better understanding of just where your client is and how "realistic" any proposed change may be.
• Adding a Profit Profiler analysis to expansion proposals will give decision makers more comfort with decisions being made.
• Adding Profit Profiler analysis to your service package increases your value to the client.
• Profit Profiler benchmarks are invaluable when training new staff in the dairy business. • The use of both tables and graphs allows most people to see certain measures more clearly and understand concepts.
Profit Profiler Dairy Financial Analysis Service is available to all dairymen.You do not have to be on a DHI testing program to use this service. This information is invaluable in identifying opportunities for improved profit that can easily translate into thousands of dollars. This type of comprehensive financial analysis is not available anywhere else and would cost considerably more for you to complete on your own. The Profit Profiler fee of $895 per year includes assistance to gather the information, providing key reports and assistance understanding the reports. In addition there is unlimited peer group comparisons and "What IF" options.
For more details visit the CanWest DHI website and contact qualified advisors listed there or contact Bill Grexton, CanWest DHI, by calling (800) 549-4373 ext 254 .