Planning

Planning ahead with business succession planning

An essential step to ensure that your business continues for many generations is business succession planning. In this regard, family succession planning is of the utmost importance. Succession planning is summarized as a strategy to ensure that the passing of critical individuals does not harm the business. The business may flounder for a variety of factors when one of the critical people is to pass away. The first and most important factor is that if there is no clear instruction on a person to take over the responsibilities of the deceased key personnel, the daily management of the business may fall apart. The intention of Business planningis to make sure that the performance of the business will continue on which very often determines its survival. Business planning is carried out in order that if key people leave, the business can still carry on to accomplish its goals and perform daily operations with minimal disruption. Succession planning is important to allow a smooth leadership transition to take place.

 

In the business planning process, identifying crucial roles in the business like the CEO and the major duties fulfilled by these roles like decision making, management, ethics, interfacing with the public, steering the organizational vision and values, etc. are important. This process involves identifying personnel who can take up these roles in the organization and preparing them to either temporarily or permanently step into the vacant role. Sometimes, it can also call for a recruitment process which describes the desirable qualities of the candidate. In any good succession planning process, the strategic objectives and vision of the business and identifying how they will survive if the key personnel were to depart is taken into account. Also in a good business plan, the organization’s objectives and goals should be reinforced and in line with the overall business strategy.

 

Succession planning remains as a necessary feature for effective and healthy profit or non-profit organizations. Leadership transition can sometimes make or break an organization as it is a pivotal point in its life. The failure to have a business plan in place can greatly hurt the bottom line. In a for profit organization, it can cause reduced profits or even losses and in a non-profit organization it can mean less funding or program cuts.

 

Besides that, there is a second reason why succession planning is so crucial. There is the saying that the two things that you cannot avoid are death and taxes. Well, in this case, when a business owner is to pass away, there will be significant tax issues. The ownership of the business cannot be simply transferred tax free to the other family members. There are taxes involved plus the amount can be significant. Due to this, one very important aspect of succession planning is ensuring there is cash on hand to pay off any taxes. Developing a specific business plan is very much based on the circumstances faced by each customer. There is no one generic plan which will work for every situation. UFCAmerica.com is offering you a zero obligation consultation on businesssuccession planning.