News/Media Announcements: August 2019
Working with Family Members
It usually starts out when the founder’s spouse (usually the wife) helps with the business accounts. Or the teenage children need cash and help dad out in the office, warehouse or in the factory during school vacations. Such is the beginning …
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Roast Lamb and the Family Business
We have had a Sunday roast lamb with my wife’s parents now for nearly forty years. Even our children have grown to love this family ritual. Throughout the world, the tradition of the regular sharing of food brings families together even after …
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Passing the Baton
It is great to see families in business together. Especially across the generations.
No doubt there are some downside, but the benefits can be huge. It can bring significant financial benefits that can outlast the founders. It can bring a sense …
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Family Office
What comprises a Family Office?
In essence, it is the separation of a business from family wealth and the attention and diligence to the management of both.
There are many other aspects often attributed to family office, including the independent …
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Flying blind
“How’s your business going”?
Often the answer is friendly, “good”. But a more thorough questioning may reveal that the owner really doesn’t know what’s going on inside his or her business.
Does the business owner intimately know the …
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Proper structure plus good conduct delivers great performance
A wise colleague of ours always said, “80% of business problem can be attributed to inappropriate structure”.
Yet we often hear business owners proudly say, “We have a flat management structure”. They see it as a symbol of the friendly …
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Owner dependence
We have advised perhaps a thousand business owners over the last few decades and we see it time and time again. In spite of huge efforts, the business underperforms and fails to meet the owner’s expectations. In every way.
The symptoms of owner …
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Lack of focus
Business owners are instinctively entrepreneurial. It is in their blood. It is what made them identify a business opportunity in the first place, work out a way to meet that need and muster the resources to capitalise on that opportunity …
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Discipline and Diligence in the Basics
One of the world’s greatest inventors, Thomas Edison, said that none of his inventions came by accident; “What it all boils down to is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration” (Harper’s Monthly, September 1932).
Most …
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Building Competitive Advantage
If the world were perfectly homogeneous, if all businesses were the same and if goods and services offered were identical to each other, on what basis could they compete?
Price. And price alone.
Differentiation is the basis by which businesses …
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