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The Importance of Technology in a Changing World

These days, businesses are more reliant than ever before on technology, to help improve communications and to maximise efficiency in the workplace. The increased use of the internet, email and mobile technology has revolutionised the way companies operate and made IT a critical factor in building and maintaining a successful company. Yet still even today too many companies think of technology as a necessary evil rather than truly embracing all the opportunities it can bring to make organisations more efficient.

In the past companies may have been able to get away with paying lip service to IT but in the fast changing modern world this will no longer be possible. Now, with the convergence of voice and data and the much greater reliance of mobile communications, it is crucial for all businesses to urgently develop a coordinated IT Strategy.

Of course historically, companies tend to regard telecoms and data networking as being from separate budgets, but because of converging networks and the opportunities that VoIP can offer (Voice over Internet Protocol), it is no longer possible to look at them in isolation. In fact given the increased importance of remote working and the need to make sure all staff work as effectively as possible, these days companies really have no choice. The simple truth is if you don’t embrace change now, your competitors will.

The changes in business working we have seen over the last 10 years are very much only the beginning of what will happen over the next decade. At every level, faster and more accessible communication will be key. It is anticipated that in only a few years time approximately 75% of all phone calls will be made over an IP network. The converged network is here to stay and the only real choice is not if, but when you are going to embrace it. With globalisation, the increased use of home workers and the more flexible working environment; access to information needs to be seamless and instant.

Whilst the notion of the “paperless” office may not be a reality in the true sense, the need for electronic document systems (EDM) that can allow staff to access a wide range of documents wherever they may be in the world will only increase in the future. In an ever more competitive world, customers will be drawn to businesses that make communication with them (including buying and selling) as easy as possible. Good technology used properly will reflect well on your business and can help motivate your staff by taking some of the drudgery out of their day to day tasks.

Increasingly websites that used to be used merely as a “shop window” will now be more integrated with other back office systems. In the airline industry you don’t just book your flight online but also choose your seat, order your meal and even “check in”. In less than 5 years, airline tickets have become redundant and administrative processes have been radically streamlined to maximise efficiency.

This integration of the internet with other business processes will only become a lot more important as web use increases. Clients will want to have full visibility of every part of their interaction with your company. Once again easy access to information and the sharing of knowledge will be the key.

Of course with increased compliance legislation and the need for Business Continuity Planning, technology can also provide a crucial back up in the event of an unforeseen disaster. With the proper storage of electronic data and the rerouting of voice and data over the internet, many companies can in effect be lifted from one location and taken to another with minimal disruption. In the recent flooding in 2007, Disaster Recovery became not just an intellectual exercise but an unfortunate reality for hundreds of local businesses.

Technology therefore must be embraced by all of the decision makers in a company and their views properly coordinated to enjoy all the benefits it can offer. Don’t think of IT simply as a cost but more as a real opportunity to drive efficiency into your business. Currently many organisations are still too reactive and fail to think strategically enough about how the world is changing and how their business is changing with it. We are now ten years into the 21st century and the rate of change is only going to increase not slow down.

Maybe now you can see why getting a Strategic IT Road Map for your business is not a “nice to have” but in the modern day and age is simply a necessity. I suggest you review your company’s existing IT Support and maybe consider Outsourcing your IT as a cost saving exercise. There are many companies out there who offer a full Managed Service Provision who could potentially improve your business efficiency enormously. These days your systems can be monitored 24×7, 365 days a year with a much more proactive approach to IT management.

As a final example, think of the mobile phone you have today and compare it to the one you had 5 years ago. The functionality of that device will have changed enormously and emphasises again just how fast technology is moving. And by the way if your current “phone” still doesn’t allow you access to the internet and can’t push your emails to you automatically, you are now already several years behind the game!

Importance of Website Design and Development

A website is an online identity of a company or of an individual involved in Internet Marketing. The task associated with the website is to represent a company, sell company’s name, attract more visitors, generate more business leads, promote more sale of company’s products and services and ultimately, help to gain more return on investment.

In this era of advanced technology, electronic commerce have highly dominated the marketing practice, and due to easy availability and affordable cost of the Internet, people are running after it and making huge profit at the comfort of their home.

As a serious online business person, what is important for your business is, to prepare a website that is well designed, attractive, easy to navigate, highly usable, good content, full of relevant information, enough functionalities and are capable of retaining visitors for long and make them come back again.

We know, Web is the visual interface and what people look on the Web will be manipulated and interpreted into their mind and perception. So being a website designer and programmer, you must be careful about the use of color effects, lights, visual effects, positioning and size of contents and use of search engine friendly technology, so that people must remember your website name first and search you first on the Web.

To achieve all the above mentioned strategies, your website building needs a professional touch from qualified website designers and developers who can put their best acquired knowledge and experience to make a suitable portal that can turn each visitors into potential buyers.

In fact, there are two types of website design such as, static and dynamic website design. You can opt for static as well as dynamic website design where former is based on simple HTML code and latter is developed with advanced and sophisticated technologies based on the information provided in the database. Dynamic website is actually selling these days, because apart from its beauty and diverse applicability, it gives the ease of quick and self information updating facility to site administrator without being proficient technically.

Another important factor for a well designed and programmed website is the quality search engine optimization service. Search engine optimization is the basis of search engine marketing success, because website optimization process spice-up the website with relevant keywords, facilitate one-way link, enhance link-popularity and place website at top or near the top of search engine result page that ultimately help in attracting motivated buyers and more traffic to website.

If you want to excel high in your online business, aforesaid strategies of website design and development must be dealt with great care. There are numerous such companies which can give promising website designing and development solution at an affordable rate, at the same time, false promise making dudes are also in plenty. For affordable Web site design and development services, you can even think of any offshore website design and development company with thorough research on their portfolios.

The Importance Of eCommerce Website Designing

The world is transforming into a digital platform each passing day, more and more people are getting online. Consumers and brands are joining this platform like a revolution in every way they can whether it is blogging, social media or browsing. Those companies which didn’t focus on this till yet, they are most probably behind their competitors. Without a digital presence, you can’t have a great impact in the market. That is where eCommerce sites come in, a site or a portal which facilitates all the features and benefits a company and their user need to engage and make future decisions.

A perfectly designed and developed eCommerce site would have all the basic and advanced features to facilitate easy navigation, tracking details and providing better experience every time user lands on it. It consists of astonishing graphics in conjugation with conspicuous copywriting which is difficult to ignore. You can display and do some sorts of sale on a static site also, but dynamic websites are recommended for providing better service. On dynamic ones, you can easily customize the adjustable things and add products with changing discounts and offers.

It is a unique way to offer such experience what captivates your target audience and prompt them to come back again. A thank you page, followup email or digital marketing plays a good role in bringing back to their landing page which means continuous flow of income and customers’ satisfaction. You can set up different payment options, tracking options for orders, and you can also store their details for providing customized service next time. It also allows you to add advanced features.

The popular languages for eCommerce website designing and development are Magento, PHP, python and so on. Some of the languages cost money like Magento and Zen cart, and some like PHP and Drupal are free to use. A professional designing company would mix HTML codes also to make it more SEO friendly. No matter what they do, the outcome should always be user-friendly site with easy navigation, engagement features and convenient to make purchase.

Now comes the main point, who should invest in this? Almost anyone- who would like to do online business and sell more products alongside influencing their offline presence. If you are in retail sector, real estate, food business or in any other field where you find opportunities to expand your business online, then it is the best option for you.

Keywords and Its Importance in Online Job Search

Job search today revolves mostly around the mysterious use of keywords. Whether you are a candidate looking for a job or a company looking for candidates to fill in a job vacancy, the importance of keywords can not be ignored.

Let’s take the first scenario. You are a job seeker in search of your ideal job. Chances are that you are using the internet to do so. Statistics reveal that nearly 90% of job seekers search for jobs online. Now, there are 2 basic ways of going about this – 1. You search for jobs online and apply 2. You upload your resume and the companies find you.

If you are looking for a job to suit you, it is important that you type in the right keywords for effective search. Keywords are basically nouns that describe the skills or job specifications and titles. They are usually industry buzzwords and jargons. Hence, when you are looking for a job in a particular field, ensure you know the buzzwords.

Most job search sites offer multiple search levels. They allow their visitors to search not only based on the skill set (although this is always the primary criteria) but also offer criteria such as location, years of experience, company, salary package etc. Use these parameters to filter the ideal job matching your needs.

If you are submitting your resume, ensure that it is ‘keyword searchable’. Recruiters always search for the candidate’s resume through keywords. They search the resume databases for various job vacancies using specific keywords. Does this mean that you need to customize your resume for each job? Ideally, yes. If your resume does not have the keywords thrown in enough number of times, chances are that they would not pop up when searched for, and hence, you would be filtered out.

But how does one know which keywords to incorporate? How do you know what words would the person at the other end be typing? Although there is no fool-proof way to get the exact keyword list, the answer usually lies in the employment ad itself! Scrutinize the advertisement and use the same words and jargon they have used. This is the safest and the most prudent way to ensure that you would not go wrong.

Once you know the keywords, the next crucial step is to integrate them effectively. It is a common belief that search engines go through the first 100 words of the document for keywords. But technology is developing fast and it is wise to throw in the keywords throughout your resume.

Ideally, load the first portion of your resume with the relevant keywords. You can call it your ‘Profile’ or ‘Summary’ or ‘Introduction’. However, ensure that these keywords are also used wherever they can in the rest of the resume sections. This will ensure that you get searched as well as not appear as if you have put the keywords just for the heck of it. Also, remember that this online search engine is just the preliminary round. In later stages, there will be humans going through your resume in detail. You definitely don’t want to get eliminated then! Another reason is that most search applications gives importance to Keyword Density, that is, how many times the keyword is used in the entire document.

Ideally, you should be creating customized resumes for each job you apply for. But this is not practically possible. Hence it is wise to have a basic skeleton of the resume, and tweak certain elements and words here and there to incorporate the required keywords to suit specific job vacancies.

Small Business Management Consulting – The Importance of Consulting

In the recent years, the small business industry has seen a massive boom. Many individuals saw their stars rise while some of them saw their stars plummet. It is true that initiating and running a small business is easier but there are a number of essentials that need to be focused on. People who fail in the small business industry are the ones who try and overlook the most important factors. It can give them a sneak peek of the quintessence factors of not only running a business but also being successful in it.

What exactly is small business management consulting?

Due to the nature of business, organization of projects can become a daunting task. Often entrepreneurs face such situations in which their clients are left disappointed. It is extremely important for the business owner to opt for management consulting services in order to be aware of the managerial aspects that are important for running a successful business. A small business management consulting firm can provide the business owner with strategies, tactics and the best practices of the industry. Also, one of the most significant issues discussed by consulting firms is of adapting to a Change. A Change is terminology is any change in consumer demands, the environment or a change within the organization such as hiring and firing employees and so on.

There are three major aspects of every business that are taken into consideration by firms to design an overall strategy for the business. Trends, changes and consumer demands are the three factors. Working on all these three factors, a consulting firm designs an overall organizational and operational strategy for the business to follow.

Who should opt for a business management consulting service?

Generally, any business whether it is a mid-sized one or a small one must go through the consultation process in order to know the areas that need to be focused on and why. They might not look as important initially but in the longer run, these minor factors make it impossible for the business to succeed. Every entrepreneur wants their business to succeed so a little professional help can go a long ways.

Using a service to help you manage or grow your business is sometimes hard to do. In many cases people are protective of this companies and they let pride get in the way. Those who take the leap of faith and decide to get professional help are those who are ready to take the steps towards success.

Importance of Language Translators in International Business

Language translation is an important aspect for companies to develop as they spread their reach overseas. There is a great potential for any business to grow rapidly when it expands its services internationally. However, growing internationally is not as easy as it seems. There are many small intricacies and minute details that may often be overlooked. One of these details, which must always go smoothly but is regularly taken for granted, is business translation.

Value of a business translation process

Business translation that is not up to scratch has the potential to break an international business negotiation. Without proper translation services to ensure that both parties are on the same page, both parties may end up facing many different legal challenges. For any business or company to be able to increase its commercial standing and reputation with all overseas partners, such details and intricacies in the negotiation process must be taken care of. To ensure that there is adequate support for all international dealings, a business needs to look for a translation service that can provide expertise, reliability, trust, professionalism and transparency.

Challenges with the process

The translation of commercial and business documents is not necessarily an easy task. The technical language used and the nature of the text that needs to be worked with can make the task a difficult one. Translators also face challenges due to the enormous potential harm that may result from any mistakes. Legal, financial and technical negotiations are always difficult to deal with. Getting past the considerations, negotiations and discussion of a commercial deal is a great relief. It is usually after this time that professional translators are hired to go over the documents. Once the discussions are finished and agreements have been reached, satisfied parties will not be keen to go back over the legal issues. Such dealings of an international nature often have large amounts of money at stake. At this stage, translators need to be competent and incisive as to the best way to deal with a business translation. The ability to maintain clarity and recognize sensitive areas is absolutely necessary so they do not end up creating any fresh disagreements.

Requirements of a good translator

Efficiency and accuracy are important factors that are extremely essential for any good translation service. Translators need to be able to consult with legal professionals from all other fields so there is reliability and accuracy with any terminological challenges. The process also needs to be secure and ensure that there is complete confidentiality. Your translation partners should have many years of document translation experience, to ensure they are up to the task of handling valuable and important procedures. For any translation process to be successful it is important that the translators understand the intended use of the document as well.

Computers and automated translation services that are widely available online do not understand the data that is put into them. They provide raw, direct and duplicated translation of the words that are input. The deeper meanings of phrases are quite commonly distorted. The English to Arabic translation and English to Chinese translation of important business documents can only be precisely and accurately undertaken with the support of professional translators.

Importance Of Having A Website Banner

Needless to say, you never get a second chance to make a first impression on anyone’s mind. And when a visitor comes to your website so the first thing that makes your company’s impression on their mind is the banner of your website. Therefore, having an eye-catching banner is as important for your website as salt in a dish to add taste. After all, you also want to make a first impression on your visitor’s mind. Don’t you?

On the off-chance, your website doesn’t have any such banner so the chances you are losing more customers than you are gaining right now. A banner is a sort of advertising over the World Wide Web that showcases your offers to your customers and holds their attention. Here are some points that make you understand the importance of having a website banner.

Encourage Visitors: One of the common reasons to have a website banner is that it helps to encourage your customer to stay on your website for further browsing to understand your offered products and services. All in all, it increases the visibility of your website on different search engines and easily captures their attention.

Cheapest Way Of Advertising: Advertising can do wonders for your business growth and if you are not investing in it to save your money so you probably losing the countless business opportunities. Yes, advertising is expensive, but not all the time because website banner is the cheapest way to do it in an effective and creative manner.

Promote Company News: If your business holds any event and want people to know about it, so, website banner is the easiest way to do so. It allowed you to promote your company news and important information in a manner that captures the attention of its visitors, so, more and more people get involved in it.

Highlight Hot Products And Services: Another reason to have a website banner is that it helps to highlight your star products and services in front of your customer. It increases your conversion rate and gives new wings to your business promotion.

What do you think now? All above points clear your doubts regarding its importance for your business. The banner can be challenging to design but can do a miracle for your business growth and therefore you should hire a Website Designing Company to do this task. The banner is the gateway of your website makes sure it should be attractive and informative as well that increases your presence over the World Wide Web.

Housekeeping Services – Business Aspects and Importance

Housekeeping services are procedures to maintain neatness and cleanliness at different property types. Corporate houses hire professional providers to get their office spotless and create a nice working environment. Besides, housekeeping service providers offer services for houses, estates, hospitals and other establishments.

The emergence of housekeeping services India has witnessed in the recent times is worth taking a note. Many professional companies all over the country are involved in providing general and advanced house cleaning services. Go through the following discussion to learn the type of services expected from housekeeping professionals.

Floor Cleaning

Professional housekeeping services offer cleaning services for all types of floors, including concrete floors marble floors, wooden floors and tiled floors. Corridors, entrance areas and stairways are also cleaned by these professionals. Cleaning of floor includes services like sweeping and mopping.

Carpet Cleaning

Keeping the carpet clean is one of the challenges faced by home and office owners. Professional housekeeping offers carpet cleaning as a part of their package. These cleaning professionals remove sand, dirt, foreign matter and other things from the carpet. Carpet shampooing and vacuum cleaning are the services offered by these professionals.

Waste Disposal Services

Housekeeping services are helpful in getting the waste from house or office disposed easily without facing any inconvenience. Most of the home and office owners find it frustrating to dispose off the garbage and other types of wastes. Getting the garbage disposed off with professional services is a practical solution.

Furniture and Upholstery Cleaning

Furniture items like couches catch dust and dirt with the passage of time, but cleaning them is a big challenge. You can relay on professional services like house keeping to keep these items clean. These services are applicable to upholstery and various equipments as well.

Odor and Pest Control

Anther task performed by the professional housekeeping service providers are controlling bad odors that might result from different sources. Leakage of water and flood water are some of the causes for bad odors. This services can also be hired for pest control at homes, offices and estates. Rats, rodents, lizards, cockroaches and many types of insects pose a great problem for the property owners. Getting them terminated using professionals is a good solution.

Glass Cleaning

Housekeeping services also involve professional glass cleaning services, especially for corporate houses with huge glasses installed in their premises. Glass cleaning needs to be efficient to keep the glass surface spotless. At the same time, this must be done with great safety. Professional cleaning services are recommended for the same.

Building Maintenance

Building maintenance involves inspecting different parts of the building regularly. Checking electric faults, water leakage and other types of repair work are other tasks performed by the hired housekeeping professionals.

Housekeeping services can be hired for commercial buildings like shopping malls and departmental stores. Hospitals and health care clinics are also among the establishments that can take advantage of these services. Housekeeping service providers make use of authorized cleaning products and solutions, latest cleaning equipments and safe and efficient techniques to deliver most desirable cleaning services.

Importance of Front End Development for Business Success

Take your business to new heights with the best front end development services

A book is always judged by its cover! A business needs to possess a website that is completely clean, attractive and functional. Now-a-days, websites play a very important role in uplift of your business. The more attractive and infatuate your website is, more are the people attracted towards it. To make your website attract and hold visitors on it, front end development plays a very important role. When visitors stay for longer on your site, they tend to learn more and more about your business and eventually become your customers. As the front end development plays a very crucial role in this digital marketing concept, you need to go for best front end development company.

You are required to be very careful in making the choice for front end web development company. Any wrong type of development can turn into unsightly appearance and it can also drive away your business. A website’s layout is an important factor for the business purpose. Even branding and customer needs to fully support the company itself are attached to it. Therefore, in order to promote your business and increase the chances of your success, you should pay special attention to the front end development. Let’s discuss the features of a website with good front end development.

First Look:

First impression is the last impression. It might not be true for other things, but it is very much true when it comes to website. When you search on Google with some specific keywords, you will find a number of websites that are related to the keywords. There is a herd of businesses on internet and all are competing to be the best. To make your business stand out among all similar businesses, you need to make your websites that gives a terrific first appearance. Well, making your website attractive will not help alone. In fact, you have to make sure that your website is attractive to your targeted audience. It should immediately offer what a customer wants. All this makes it very important for you to go for the best front end development services.

Business Purpose:

The need of conveying the business’s true motive cannot be ignored. Even though the targeted audience is visiting your website and your website is showing user-friendly and welcoming web experience, the idea of conveying business purpose cannot be ignored. When a person visits your website, they should encounter the main purpose of the website. In order to make the website attractive, developers often go for fascinating designs and graphics that are sometimes irrelevant. This should be ignored completely and to overcome the situation, you need to go for the best front end development services. Customers should immediately connect with what your website wants to say.

Success Branding:

Successful branding is what your business requires. Power branding with business logos, designs and products contribute to effective websites. Your website layout is crucial in conveying branding to customers. It should feature similar color, graphics and language that help customers recognize your business at once. This will help them identify your products in physical market as well and will boost the sale. This also leads to brand loyalty with simple recognition. Branding symbols and trademarks are of great importance on a business website. To make it all happen, you can consider going for the best front end development company.

Trust and Confidence:

A good front end plays a very important role in building trust and confidence among your customers. If the visitors on your websites and your customers regularly encounter problems with time errors, poor graphics and other such issues, they are not likely to return. When a customer’s trust is broken, he starts to look for other similar service and this populated digital world offers him a lot. Also, a disheartened customer would spread the word like fire among his friends and family. Therefore, it becomes very important for your website to have clean, clear and organized layout with attractive and relevant graphics.

Ability to Innovate:

Sometimes the only arbiter of success, in a marketplace that’s continuously in flux, is how fast you can launch. Everything depends on how you can pivot to keep launching things that people love, before you run out of money or time. In order to generate hundreds of innovations to test in the marketplace, one has to support their organization’s ability to innovate. When you build a better front end development, you have more visitors on your website. It definitely increases demand to some extent and thus you have an idea of how much to produce. When you have an estimate, you have a chance to innovate.

These are the biggest benefits of having a good and attractive front end. This makes it very clear that just having a website won’t work. Having an attractive and creative design is something that should be focused on. The more attractive your design is, the more advantages it delivers.

The Importance of Succession Planning

Business Continuity Planning

The Disaster Recovery Journal (DRJ) defines Business Continuity Management (BCM) as “A holistic management process that identifies potential impacts that threaten an organization and provides a framework for building resilience with the capability for an effective response that safeguards the interests of its key stakeholders, reputation, brand and value creating activities. The management of recovery or continuity in the event of a disaster. Also the management of the overall program through training, rehearsals, and reviews, to ensure the plan stays current and up to date.” (n.d.) Within the scope of BCM comes succession planning, defined by DRJ as “A predetermined plan for ensuring the continuity of authority, decision-making, and communication in the event that key members of executive management unexpectedly become incapacitated.” (n.d.)

The Importance of Planning

Why are these planning aspects critical to businesses and governments? Planning to do business during a crisis is critical to being able to perform essential functions during and after the crisis. The prognosis for those without a plan is certain business death:

Of businesses without a disaster recovery plan:

> 80% will fail in just over a year,

> 43% will not even reopen,

> 93 percent that experience a significant data loss are out of business within five years according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor. (Hatter, 2004)

Clearly, the evidence supports the need for a business to be prepared for disasters. The question then becomes, “What is a disaster?” DRI International offers the following as the definition of a disaster: “A disaster is a sudden, unplanned calamitous event that creates an inability on an organizations part to provide the critical business functions for some predetermined period of time and which results in great damage or loss.” (2006)

Implied in the DRI definition is the loss being to an “unacceptable” level. If a sudden, unplanned event occurred that prevented the business from performing critical business functions and was going to result in a loss of fifty million dollars due to law suits, but the company carries insurance for one hundred million dollars, the loss may not be “unacceptable”. The loss has been mitigated with the insurance; however, the company may now be battling a public relations issue related to the law suit. As pointed out in a Harvard Business Review, “Companies sometimes misclassify a problem, focusing on the technical aspects and ignoring the issues of perception.” (Augustine, 2000)

Utilizing this definition of disaster opens the planning paradigm to many different scenarios outside the traditionally defined natural, manmade, technological, and terrorism events. Suddenly the definition of disaster allows for more varies considerations, including product recall; class action and individual law suits; and executive defection, resignation, termination, arrest, contract expiration, or death. All of these items can create “an inability on an organizations part to provide critical business functions…which results in great damage or loss.”

Denial

The definition of disaster also helps mitigate another phenomenon in crisis response: denial. As Augustine points out, “This stage of crisis management is often the most challenging: recognizing that, in fact, there is a crisis.” (Augustine, 2000) Setting a quantifiable threshold for “unacceptable” loss allows executives to discern that there is a crisis situation that requires a response. It is only when the crisis is acknowledged that the inevitable effects can be mitigated.

Succession Planning

Wikipedia defines succession planning “as the process of identifying and preparing suitable employees through mentoring, training and job rotation, to replace key players such as the chief executive officer (CEO) within an organization as their terms expire.” As explained in this statement by Brent Filson, “It’s a common occurrence, a CEO leads a company to record earnings, retires and in just a couple of years, those once high-flying earnings are dropping like shot ducks. Observers blame the new leadership team. But most likely the observers are wrong. It’s not just the new leaders who are screwing up. Instead, it was most likely the former CEO… So when a decline follows the departure of great leaders, the safe bet is that those “great” leaders haven’t hired and developed leaders – and so really weren’t great at all, no matter what results they got.” (Filson, n.d.) A trait of excellent military leadership requires the leader to develop the personnel below him to ascend in to the position the leader occupies so the leader is free to move up the ranks, or so the subordinates are capable of handling battlefield situations if the leader is incapacitated. A military unit should not have the survivability of a snake, where cutting off the tail is not a problem, but cutting off the head (leader) results in the death of the unit.

Development of the next generation of leader is a paramount task. “It is instructive here to recall that Noah started building the ark before it began to rain.” (Augustine, 2000) Prior planning prevents poor performance. Without the proper methodology being utilized to prepare for personnel turn-over or unavailability, the corporation can be sent into panic hiring, can fail to continue to implement strategic plans because of the loss of a key individual, and multiple other pitfalls because they were not ready.

Short Term Needs

Planning must account for short time frame notification items. What does the company do when two executive VPs are killed in a plane crash? Who has been groomed and is ready to be “acting” in their place until they can be either ramped up to the permanent replacement or until an executive search reveals the best candidate? When a top executive resigns and moves to a competitor, has the company already instituted a program to ensure that individuals know that strategic plans, customer accounts, and other vital critical business information is in fact the exclusive property of the company and had these key individuals sign off on non-disclosure agreements? If they had not done this prior to hiring the defecting manager, are they prepared to ensure that incoming key personnel are required to affirm their loyalty in exchange for the position?

Mid-Range Needs

Personnel will retire. The text gives the example of GM and their planning process. Any company that is not preparing a like plan for grooming and testing the capabilities of personnel who may be tapped to be the top executive must seriously consider how prepared they really are to do business. Failing to plan is, in effect, planning to fail.

Retirements with long lead windows give companies ample time to try people in the proposed position, to be more closely mentored, or to be given charge of substantially more responsibility to see how they are able to handle the situations that they will be confronted with when they are given the nod.

Long Term Needs

The United States is entering an era where the baby-boomer generation population will begin to affect balance in the worker availability pool. Starting in 2010, the demographic growth-rate balance starts to shift, and by 2015, the 65-and-over age group starts to grow at a faster rate than the 20-to-64 age group.” (Allier, J.J. and Kolosh, Keneth, 2005)

“Organizations that understand the immediacy of the baby boom exit and thoughtfully prepare for it will be in the best position to achieve unmatched success.” (Allier, J.J. and Kolosh, Keneth, 2005) The authors offer questions businesses should be asking themselves to prepare for the coming demographic change. Some of them are:

> What are your company’s demographics (age, gender, position, years in position and anniversary date)?

> What are your company’s retirement policies? Is early retirement encouraged or discouraged?

> What mechanisms and programs must be put in place now to capture key competencies and critical work knowledge of employees who will be retiring?

> Will your organization need to increase its reliance on new immigrants?

> If your organization is offshoring, what is the age breakdown of your overseas partners?

> Will your offshoring partners face a labor shortage that may impact their ability to provide services?

(Allier, J.J. and Kolosh, Keneth, 2005)

Allier and Kolosh also point out that businesses need to position themselves to deal with the needs of an aging population. There may be a need for unique skill sets and competencies, as well as a need for new or modified product designs to be marketed to the aging population. These issues tie back into business continuity planning. To continue to be competitive in the future, businesses have to prepare for the shifting change in the average age.

Not Just for Executive

When developing succession plans, it is important to remember that the scope should not be narrowly focused to just the executives of the corporation. Steve Nelson, the MSPB’s policy director, said, “Succession planning is often focused on top leadership when we need to be looking at critical skill areas at all levels.” (Welles, 2006) Marta Brito Perez, associate director of human capital leadership and merit system accountability at OPM, said, “Succession planning has nothing to do with age. Succession planning is just identifying high-risk jobs and how to fill them.” (Welles, 2006)

The Process

The process of succession planning entails assessing what positions are critical to have a succession contingency plan. The positions are assessed, and then the skill sets of the candidates that could fill these positions are assessed, factoring in the time frame that would be required to get them up to speed for the position. A training program must then be implemented to ensure that there is progress in bringing these individuals closer to a more immediate insertion rate in case a planned position turns over. This will ensure a more seamless transfer for the person in waiting and provide a measure of corporate stability in a challenging time.

Summary

Succession planning is one piece of the overall business continuity planning process. It is a piece that cannot be over looked. Ignoring succession planning will leave the company without properly developed managers and key personnel to fill the shoes of those who leave for whatever reason.

References

(2006). BCP 501: Business continuity planning review 2006. Washington, DC: DRI International.

(n.d). Business continuity glossary. Retrieved May 1, 2007, from Disaster Recovery Journal Web site:

Allier, J.J. and Kolosh, Keneth (2005, June). Preparing for baby boomer retirement. Retrieved May 13, 2007, from Web site clomedia

Augustine, Norman (2000). Harvard business review on crisis management. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.

Filson, Brent (n.d). A different leadership yardstick. Retrieved May 1, 2007, from emergingleader

Hatter, Dave (2004, August 6). Without a disaster recovery plan, your business at risk. Retrieved May 12, 2007, from Cincinnati business courier Web site:

Welles, Judy (2006, May 22). Welles: Successful succession planning: Be prepared by matching talented employees to leaders before those leaders depart. Retrieved May 3, 2007,