The Ultimate Succession Planning Guide
A well thought through succession plan is essential to every business no matter what the intention is for the future. It should be a key part of your business' growth strategy and risk management process.
Getting The People Side Of Merger Integration Right
The single biggest reason for merger or acquisition failure is not costs, lack of synergy or an incompatible strategy. It's people.
How You Can Sell Your Business To Generations X And Y
The unfortunate fact is that with limited time to accrue wealth and little left over for saving each month, many potential Generation X and Y buyers will have insufficient financial resources of their own to purchase a business. So how can Baby Boomers still attract potential business buyers from Generations X and Y?
10 Key Values Buyers Look For
If you are considering selling your business, this article will help you evaluate your company as a strategic acquirer might. From that perspective it pays to focus on ten critical areas of value creation.
Selling Your Business - A Once In A Lifetime Opportunity
Planning and preparation will be necessary to successfully negotiate a sale of your business on the best terms. Here are some important points to remember.
Succession Planning For Small Businesses
These tips will assist small business owners in creating a lasting business legacy, that will see their original idea flourish and expand in the decades to come.
Planning A Smooth Financial Transition In Succession
Succession planning should be an exciting time for all business owners. With forward planning and a proactive approach - including the issues mentioned in this article - it can leave you financially satisfied personally, as well as ensure the ongoing longevity of the business that you've worked so hard to build.
Business Succession Planning Timeline
No matter whether you are planning to eventually sell your business, pass management on to another staff or family member, or stay involved in some capacity - even if its not in a ‘hands on' day-to-day operational sense - having a succession plan in place is critical to success.
Top 7 Ways To Maximise Your Exit Strategy Now For Maximum Profit
This is one of the most critical times in your life. It's essential to be prepared and ready for any prospect who may come through your door.
Before You Sell Your Business ...
If you're a business owner, chances are you're thinking about what you'll do when your working days are over. Even if you currently view the idea as unlikely, you are wise to consider the possibility of selling your company.
Is Now The Right Time To Sell Your Business?
You get a single chance to put a price tag on possibly years and years of effort. Once you sign the business sale documents, it's over. So, now the question is: Is now the right time to sell your business for maximum profit?
Business Buyers Negotiating Tactics
If you are a business seller, one of the most challenging aspects of the sale process is listening to a potential buyer tell you why your baby is not beautiful. It is hard not to take that personally. Learn to recognise it for what it is - a negotiating ploy.
Business Succession Planning
Successful business succession hinges on careful planning and it should be started as soon as possible in the life of a business.
Selling Your Business: How To Find Buyers So You Can Maximise Your Exit
Potential buyers won't flock to your business if you simply put up a for sale sign. Here are my top secrets to help you find the best buyers for your business.
Business Succession Explained
There seem to be many aspects to succession planning - ownership succession, management succession, and internal succession - and this can be quite daunting for business owners.
How To Keep IT On Track When Integrating Companies - Integration And Integrity
No business wants to be perceived as a loser in the intricate game of M&A. To beat the odds and actually deliver the value as promised to shareholders, companies must address risk holistically, taking special care to focus on data. Data issues have caused many to stumble.
Succession
Why the urgency for business owners to act now?
How To Keep IT On Track When Integrating Companies - Expectations And Assumptions
How can companies reduce the risk that their merger or acquisition will be derailed by data issues?
Selling Your Business To Your Employees
With the number of businesses for sale likely to escalate in coming years, one option is selling the business to employees.
Smart Acquisitions
In theory, buying another business can be a good way to grow, but it needs careful study.
A Value-Added Sale
You can get much more for your business if you can prove that higher earnings are possible.
Dressed To Thrill
A bit of preparation can produce a business valuation that any potential buyer will be happy with.
Exit, Staged Right
Selling a business is a reality many will face, and if planned properly it can be a positive experience.
When Potential Beats Profit
It is not always the balance sheet that makes a busines look attractive to a would-be buyer.
When To Sell
Picking the right time to sell a business should be a matter of personal feelings, not prices.
Hidden Treasures
Too often owners sell businesses ignoring the potential that might excite buyers.
Planning Your Departure From The Business
Facing up to the issue of succession planning can generate real anxiety - even fear - in the hearts of many business owners, but failure to properly plan the changeover can undo much of the good work in building the business.
Succession Or Sale - What's Your Business Worth?
Approximately 68% of business owners are planning to retire over the next 10 years. This represents an estimated $1.6 trillion (yes trillion) in assets and management control changing hands.
What To Do During The Five Ages Of Superannuation
For most of us, thinking about what superannuation we need is something to do when we get closer to retirement. However, by then it can be too late to make any significant difference to super savings - and the opportunity for taking full advantage of the long term effect of compound interest on investment returns is lost.
The Cost Of Going Public
A common question from companies considering an Initial Public Offering (IPO) is: what will be the cost?
Key Considerations On Buying A Business
Expanding a business through acquisition is something most owners consider at some time, and in our experience those that do, are often unaware of the risks involved, and how to set a realistic purchase price.
When Should You Start Succession Planning? Yesterday!
As a business owner, no matter what size or type of business you operate, you must have a succession plan in place for the inevitable day that you decide to transfer both the management and control of the business to someone else.
Unconventional Succession Planning
With a highly competitive environment for talent, old methods of succession planning are no longer viable. For many companies, HR processes are not well positioned, or integrated enough to support a culture of development required to growing talent.
Succession Planning - It's More Than Just Replacing People Who Leave
We tend to think of succession planning as having a few plans in place if a key person gets hit by a bus or someone retires. In practice it has to be more than this if you want to avoid continually trying to "catch up".
Ten Succession Planning Points
Ten points to assist you in planning your succession.
The Solution To Brand Dilution
How a company can grow through acquisition without losing its identity.
Restructuring The Board To Be "Investor Ready"
The function and expectations of a board of directors can change significantly when a company decides to bring in external investors, for example through venture capital or an initial public offering (IPO).
WorkChoices: New Rules When Purchasing A Business
Businesses - particularly prospective purchasers of another business - should now be familiarising themselves with the changes to the transmission of business rules that WorkChoices will introduce. Below we discuss the current rules and then consider the rules under WorkChoices.
Making A Strategic Acquisition
Purchasing another business could expand your business overnight. It might enable you to take advantage of new economies of scale, or diversify into new areas. But an acquisition can also bring problems, draining financial and management resources from your original business. This article considers some of the pros and cons in expanding your business through an acquisition.
Get Your Business Investment Ready
The time comes when many small-business owners realise the only prospect for expansion is bringing in external investment. It could be a bank loan or taking on board new shareholders as business angels, venture capitalists or even a stock market flotation. Whichever it is, solid preparation is the key to success. Here, we take you through the key steps to getting your business investment-ready.
Business Evolution - Onwards And Upwards
The principal challenge facing many small and medium sized businesses over the next decade is how to manage the evolution of their business. 83% of Australian businesses are family owned and it is estimated that 70% of those businesses will face a generational change in the next decade.
Capitalising On Human Capital
Since human capital can be extremely valuable, consideration should be given to including it in transactions (such as licences and sales/purchases) to maximise the benefit of these transactions.
Business Owners Shouldn’t Neglect Estate Planning
Business owners usually have some sort of a business plan. They also frequently have key-person insurance in place. Some even have a succession plan in mind, even if they have not fully articulated it or have set up the business in a way that helps them achieve their plans. But even if business owners have all such risk management approaches in place, the chances are they still do not have a properly developed estate planning approach.
Acquisition Competence: The Three Critical Elements
The obvious place for a company to begin to develop an effective acquisition capability is to examine best practices in the area. These acquisition best practices separate into two categories: pre-deal due-diligence and post-merger integration planning, and the actual post-merger integration process.
Navigating Rough Seas - The Value Of Coaching In Guiding Executives Through Mergers &Acquisitions
One of the most complex business situations for any executive to navigate is a merger or acquisition. So, why do so many senior executives attempt to find the right course without a "guide" in the form of a professional executive coach?
Due Diligence Dollars: Pre-Deal Operational Issues For HR
What should acquiring entities think about pre-deal? The short answer is, unfortunately, everything. Lists upon lists of "to-dos" abound - from things you need to think about before you do anything... to things that are typically overlooked in transactions. We thought we would add to this collection by offering up a list of our own: a list pertaining to people issues.
Keeping The Money After Selling The Business
Congratulations! You’ve been offered what you feel is a good price for your business. But is it the best price available? And how much of it will you need to give to the government in tax?
Doing The Right Things: Why HR Needs To Be Involved
About half of all Merger & Acquistion transactions actually destroy value for the buyer's shareholders, and half fall short of the expectations optimistically proclaimed at the time the deal is announced. The reasons that these deals fail are often blamed on strategic or financial factors. But, just as often, the root cause has to do with people and the cultural clash between the two organizations.
Who Is Going To Wear Your Shoes?
You can’t take it with you. Business really does mirror life. An aging population of business owners and managers are, or soon will be, confronting the reality of business and personal mortality. They need to plan accordingly.
Making Acquisitions Good For Growth
With businesses of all sizes facing competitive change in the 2000s, the pressures to find effective routes to growth have intensified significantly. Small, medium and very large corporations are inclined to thrust for growth especially in the search for shareholder value.
Succession Planning - The Achilles Heel Of Medium-Sized Business
Succession planning is a prudent management measure to protect the lifetime of a business well beyond its operations and ownership structure. It is also a useful exercise to protect a business against unexpected illness or loss of owner or senior management's time.
Franchises - Understanding The Risks
If you are considering buying a franchise you should consider all available information before making the decision.
The Difficult Transition Phase Of The Acquisition Process
Acquisitions should provide an opportunity for growth and the creation of significant value-added opportunities. However success is dependent on ensuring a smooth transition during the change over.
Due Diligence: What Is All The Fuss About?
Due diligence and major deals are like bricks and mortar. If a deal is prepared without conducting a thorough analysis of a deal's strategic logic and potential value, cracks in a deal's structure may go unnoticed. The financial implications of this oversight should not be underestimated.
Making Your Business Valuable
The majority of business owners want to realise their investment in the business at some point, but how many work at keeping their business at its optimal value and attractive to buyers?
Why Pursue An Initial Public Offering (IPO)?
Pursuing an IPO is a significant step in the life of any company. The listing process can be costly and disruptive and, once listed, the business is subject to an increased level of reporting requirements and public scrutiny, as well as pressure from shareholders to meet earnings and dividend forecasts and maintain a rising share price.
Seven Golden Rules For Maximising Family Business Value
A Family Business can be a treasure, or a terrible trap, to the family and other stakeholders. Fortunately, there are some Golden Rules you can follow ...
Basis For Good Business Succession Plans
A mistake many business owners make is to believe they don’t need to develop a succession plan until they start putting their retirement plan together.
Maximising The Sale Of Your Business
The financial realisation of all the effort invested in your business, an investment often of years of sweat and tears, emotion, money and countless hours, is your reward. It is then you can see your investment’s return to you - and your family.
Australian Small & Medium Sized Business And Succession Planning
Succession planning in small to medium sized business is an important concern for the Australian business community. Recent research conducted by Monash University underscores the fact that while 70 per cent of family business owners believe succession planning is important, only 12 per cent have a documented plan.
Thinking About Selling Your Business?
As a Business Broker I am often asked to assess the value of a business and to give an opinion as to whether or not it is ready for sale. This article gives an insight into the steps to take – and questions to answer - when preparing your business for sale.
Business Buyers
Don't buy the wrong business or overpay.
Conflicting Hierarchies In Family Firms - Part 1
The daughter or younger son who becomes head of the family business must struggle with both self-identity and changing family role expectations. In a sense, these problems of ambivalence, rivalry, and self-esteem arise because of two conflicting or incongruent hierarchies.
Conflicting Hierarchies In Family Firms - Part 2
We will now turn our attention to how daughters and younger sons who become CEOs find it difficult to shake off their family ties to the bottom levels of the family hierarchy.
Conflicting Hierarchies In Family Firms - Part 3
The restructuring of identity seems to be a pervasive pattern in a large proportion of younger sons or daughters in family firms, particularly when undergoing a process of succession.
Conflicting Hierarchies In Family Firms - Part 4
Although help in restructuring hierarchies sometimes comes from within the family, as when a mother mediates on behalf of a younger son or a father voluntarily withdraws, help more often comes from the outside.
Regeneration And Growth Of Family Businesses
How can family business owners use succession and transition between generations of owners in a family-owned or closely-held business as an opportunity to jointly regenerate the business and promote the health of the owning family?
A Succession Planning Process Checklist For Owners
The following succession planning checklists can be used by family business members as part of the succession planning process.
The AXA Family Business Succession Planning Model - The Model
The following model of the succession planning process is influenced by life cycle and systems theories and are based on work with families in business, and research in the area. This model has been found to be effective in family business practice.
The AXA Family Business Succession Planning Model - The Owner
For the ignorant, old age is as winter, for the learned, it is as a harvest. Winter is something that just happens to people; while a harvest is an active, joyful process - a reward for the planning and effort that went before. (Leon Danco)
The AXA Family Business Succession Planning Model - The Successor
Dad is never going to retire. What kind of a future does this leave for me? What is the point of continuing in the business?
The AXA Family Business Succession Planning Model - The Business
The recurring theme in family business literature is that of an owner-manager who through years of hard work has built a successful and valuable enterprise and then, by failing to address certain critical business continuity issues, endangers the long-term health or even the existence of the enterprise.
The AXA Family Business Succession Planning Model - The Family
I don't know how I am ever going to get along with my brothers and sisters in the business.
Ambivalence Concerning The Development Of A Succession Plan
The founder letting go of his business can be compared to a father leading his favourite daughter down the aisle. He knows he has to let her go; he did not choose his son-in-law and yet he has to hand over his precious daughter for better or for worse and trust that things will turn out all right. (Anonymous)
Succession - Placing It In A Theoretical Perspective
Succession planning is probably one of the most important areas that families in business have to contend with. Notwithstanding, it can be helpful for owners and their family business members to become family business aware.
Mentoring And Supporting The Designated Successor
For most family business owners, an integral part of the succession planning process involves mentoring and providing the necessary ongoing support for the designated successor.
Continuity Planning In Owner-Managed Businesses
Where will your business be in 5 to 10 years, or such other time as you decide to retire?
Succession Planning In The Family Business - Critical Roles of Business Owners & Successors
In his insightful book Keeping the Family Business Healthy¹ to which readers are referred, John Ward provides some valuable advice to family business owners contemplating the issue of succession.
Benefits Of Continuity And Succession Planning In The Family Business
Whether or not it is intended that the business continue as a family business, firms that plan are more likely to achieve continuing growth, profitability and family leadership.
Few Things Are More Exciting Than Working In One's Family Company
In his book entitled “Painfully Rich – J. Paul Getty and his heirs.” Author John Pearson interviews Mark Getty, the son of J. Paul Getty II. Mark provides a fascinating description of what a family business can be when the right conditions prevail. The following are some excerpts which provide an eloquent and insightful perspective on the advantages of family businesses.
Does Your Family Have A Vision Of The Future Which Is Shared By All Interested Family Members?
Managing the family business successfully is a journey, with the choice of destination determined by the Family's Shared Dream.
Succession In The Family Business - Passing The Baton
Succession planning is the ultimate management challenge.
Key Insights & Lessons In Family Business Succession
In his insightful book ‘Succeeding Generations’, Ivan Lansberg refers to a number of key lessons in family business succession which have been summarised in this article.
Succession Planning In The Family Business
Awareness and acceptance are ONE of the necessary preconditions to successful succession planning in the family owned business.
A 10-Step Guide To Family Business Succession Planning
A family business seeks professional advice for a ‘business’ issue or problem. The solution suggested makes sense and a plan is agreed. The plan, however, is not implemented. Why?
Family Business Founders' Departure Styles
In family business literature the founder-owner-manager is viewed as the main influence in the family business and the leader’s final act is to leave the business.
Benefits Of Strategic Planning In The Family Business
Because of the well known ambivalence to succession planning in the family business it may, at times, be preferable to approach the exercise as part of an overall strategic business planning or business continuity planning process in which owner-mangers can see some immediate benefits.
How To Manage The Transfer Of The Business Effectively
Intergenerational business transfer is often poorly managed.
Keeping The Fire Burning In Your Entrepreneurial Family's Belly
When family members work together in, or share ownership of a business, it is virtually impossible for the business to function independently of the family and vice versa.
An Overview Of The Succession Process In Family Businesses
Most family enterprises do not start out as family businesses. Family businesses are usually the outcome of entrepreneurial individuals who pursue visions to start a business of their own.
The Role Of Accountants In Family Business Succession Planning
Accountants are well positioned to provide succession planning advice.
Family Businesses - The Ten Commandments
Thou shalt...
Keeping The Family Business Together
The average life expectancy of a family business is around 25 years, the tenure of one generation.
Making The Commitment To Plan For The Future Of The Family Business
Family businesses possess a number of inherent competitive advantages. However, like other businesses, they face common challenges.
Selling Your Business
In the current economic climate, there are many CEOs finding themselves faced with the unfamiliar prospect of arranging the sale of their business.