Holty’s Talent Blog

Organisations as a whole just don’t seem to be getting what they need out of systems and thinking around succession management. The companies credited with growth and sustainability driven from successful succession planning (say that 10 times !) are easily identified and constantly referred to.
What I find interesting is the challenge that succession poses to the small and medium business market – thousands and thousands of organisations, many founded and run by baby boomers who, in ever increasing numbers will seek to exit their businesss’ and reap the rewards of their toil.

this issue with this as many of you already know is that as these pople cluster around exit strategies in simlilar industry segments supply quickly starts to exceed demand and prices start to fall – business owners looking to exit in the next 5 – 10 years will compete wth many others and have to start differentiating on more than just the balance sheet and tangible assest.

Buyers will increasingly seek and differentiate their decisions and investments by metrics around the quality of human capital in a company – the culture, the leadership (after the owner has exited the business) and the attitude of the employees. Those that can demonstrate strong results in these areas and better still identify clear areas for unleashing potential will pull ahead of the pack when it comes to selling their business.

Succession issues will also start to impact deeper layers within organisations and not just revolve around the people capable of taking the top job.

Systems need to give managers and owners a simple and intuitive base from which to build out their specific succession strategy – the investment in such a strategy will increasingly determine acheiving a great v good exit for business owners.