The importance of strategic planning combined with the use of control tools to maximize profitability in feedlot cattle production

The feedlot market demonstrates a high degree of complexity regarding the variables that influence it, generating difficulties in establishing strategic guidelines for the activity. The need to generate thousands of simulations of results to achieve a broad business view led to the creation of a tool that cross-references the largest possible amount of technical and market data, concatenates the available information, and returns scenarios directly to the manager, enabling them to determine objectives and strategies that would increase the company's competitiveness. To this end, a feedlot in the state of Goiás was studied, obtaining real production and financial results information for the year 2012. Real and simulated scenarios were compared to compare EBITDA, and a brief explanation of the factors that directly influence the calculations performed was presented. The studies demonstrate that the use of a strategic plan can contribute positively to profitability by addressing the best time to confine, the animal profile, and the ideal maintenance period in the fattening regime. Due to business confidentiality reasons, the source of the data could not be disclosed.