Articles & Reference

Doing Business in the Difficult 90's

Re-Engineering, TQM, JIT Manufacturing, ISO9000 -- programs all designed to enhance the competitiveness of American businesses both here and abroad! However, amoung entrepreneurial and closely-held corporations, few try to undertake the changes these programs introduce, and, if they do, they do so timidly, as if they are going to be burned.

Most of the time their responces reflect a lack of awareness about what any of these programs do in fact offer. This article is intended to summarize a few of the basics common to all these programs, basics that a business owner can very easily carry out if in fact he or she wants to grow and compete in the future. And that is really the name of the game -- growing and competing in a dramatically changing market place where Third World countries produce high quality at low prices, technology outpaces the ability to utilize its benefits and the understanding of its implications, and the nature of competition reinvents itself ever day.

The Effectiveness of Your Business (Part 1)
(Part 2 & 3 Forthcoming)

There are many reasons for how and why businesses succeed or fail. Most of the reasons usually offered are rooted in economic fields: strategy, marketing, sales, pricing, distrubution sytems, manufactoring capabilities and the like. If a company succeeded in outpacing its competition, it was because they were first to marketm their pricing was right, they gave their customer what they wanted, they could fill their distribution channels. A failure, on the other hand, was due to not reading the market right, not investing in updated equipment, providing poor customer service and follow-up, not caring about quality, and similar such exxplanations.

All of these rationales at one ttime or another, in one place or other, are correct. They clearly merit the attention of all business people.

I would suggest asnother factor contributing to success (or otherwise), a factor that in many ways is more basic than many of these others simply because it undergrids most of them, i.e., either supports, allows, encourages, structures and/or promotes them. In fact, its influence is most clearly visible when rapidly and apparently successful growing firms (that have read the market right, that have a clear vision of the future, etc.) falter of fail. I call this factor the firm's "organizational design", comprising at least four overlapping elements:

The influence of a vision and strategy on a firm's operations

Its people: their selection, qualification, compensation, promotion, career pathing

Its system structures and work processes

Its oirganizational culture

Myths About Family Owned Business

Family owned businesses have existed as long as businesses have been around. However, it has been only in the last decade and a half or so that their existence has spawned a new enterprise, a field of consulting specialists, professional organizations, business school courses, asnd literature. And, grazing in this landscape are myths, prejudices and assumptions often enough repeated as being the result of accumulated wisdom that they appear as a natural part of the environment, not to be removed, changed, or added to, they should be examined in more detail. Perhaps, then, the germ of validity contained in them, if any, might be unfolded and preserved.

Planning for Succession in the Family Owned Business (Part 1)
Planning for Succession in the Family Owned Business (Part 2)
Planning for Succession in the Family Owned Business (Part 3)

The four keys factors in effective succession planning are:

The needs of the owner

The requirements of the business and its management team

The demands of ownership transition

Concerns about inheritance

Family and Business - The Delicate Balance

The family owned business. It's a unique breed. Because, along with all the issues, problems, challenges that any business competing in today's marketplace must deal with, there are special issues that only a family business faces.

Ask a family business owner which comes first, family, or business? Very often if not all the time, the answer is that family comes first. Sounds good, doesn't it?

But, then, ask him to give examples of what he means!! Aside from the very admirable reply that he would go to a daughter's school play or attend a son's football game no matter what business meeting he has to rearrange, most of the remaining answers fall into several categories:

Avoid "making waves"

Establishing a therapeutic have for family members

Keeping the business in the family at all costs

Using the business as a family bank

Are these appropriate in maintaining the family/business balance?

The Strategic Planning Process

What are the steps in developing a comprehensive strategic planning process? And, once developed, how do we ensure that it will put into use and not gather dust on the proverbial "shelf"?

But before undertaking a planning process ownership has to understand that unless it is committed to involving the entire employeee staff (both management and line), it won't work. For employees to be identified with the goals of ownership, their participation has to be part of developing strategy, as we'll see. Furthermore, an owner's commitment to growth and change breathes life into strategic planning is empty.

Strategic planning is the answer to at least four questions:

How do our customers/clients see us?

How do we see ourselves and the business environment?

How do we see our future?

And, what are we going to do about it?

Six Steps to Building A Winning Employee Team

The one main underlying reason for employees not being productive and not living up to your standards is they are not functioning as a team, a winning employee team. How do you develop winning employee teams?

Succeeding Yourself

Planning for Succession: The Needs of the Business and Its Management

Resolving Conflict in the Family Owned Business