Succession planning for your business success

Published July 24th, 2007

Knowing your people

People are core for businesses. Finding the right people is a
challenge. Knowing if the skills are available can be difficult.
Educating them is another challenge. Replacing them can be a nightmare!

And that’s just the beginning.

Succession planning for your business

Succession planning is preparing your business for staff changes.

On paper it may seem like a pretty straight forward issue to address, but in reality it’s like a very big puzzle with lots of very small pieces. The bigger your company, the more complex the challenge is. The more complex a puzzle, the more risk, potential problems and solutions it may bring.

Staff challenges you may face

You’ve got your army of staff, but how well do you know them? How prepared are you for the future?

No matter how big or small your company is, you need to address the following:

• how quickly can your company react to a resignation? or long term illness?
• who are key assets to the company, and how are you going to ensure they stay with you?
• Do you know what the career progression looks like for your employess?
• If someone moves up the ladder, who will replace them?
• Are there any skills gaps needed by your company?
• How much will it cost you if you are not prepared?

And we could go on, but we won’t.

Technology to solve the puzzle

Now, the question is, did you know that technology is extremely good at helping you out with succession planning?

Leading tools are now very capable of helping you make and informed decision, for example:

• GAP analysis of staff skills
• ability to compare staff profiles, side by side
• integration with performance management modules
• ability to search on individuals or groups and create graphical reports.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 at 1:09 pm and is filed under Performance, Talent. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Succession planning for your business success”

1. Scott Wait Says:
   July 27th, 2007 at 12:30 am

   I am a partner in a global consulting group, ROCG Consulting Group, that is focusing on issues of private business succession. http://www.rocg.com.

   There is a potential impending crisis that is being driven by the aging of the baby boomers. Within the next 10 years, close to 2 out of every 3 small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs), will be transferred as the baby boomer owners look to cash out. On top of this, we will also have the many non-owner boomers who will be exiting from the workforce at the same time.

   There are many unanswered questions for Small and Medium-Sized businesses on how and when to exit their businesses. ROCG, a Global Consulting Group, is trying to better understand the severity of the hurdles and challenges you will soon be facing in order to identify potential patterns that lead a business transition to either a successful outcome or to one of failure.

   With that in mind, we would greatly appreciate a few minutes of your time to participate in our international survey. ROCG is committed to maintaining the privacy of its clients and participants.
   To have blog members take the survey, please have them click on the following link - http://www.business-transition.com/survey and please use the assigned code of A62 on question #44 to tabulate your answers properly for the survey.

   We want to ensure you of our commitment to providing the highest level of professional service in this area and look forward to your participation in the survey.

   Thank you for your fellow bloggers’ possible participation in the survey.

   Warm regards,

   Scott Wait
   ROCG

2. Succession Planning Says:
   January 15th, 2008 at 3:40 pm

   Interesting thoughts on succession planning. I look forward to reading more.

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