Support for Small Business Transitions
The “Silver Tsunami” of retirements among Baby Boomer small business owners will potentially have large negative impacts, including:
– disappointing business sale values for many owners, leading to reduced quality-of-life in retirement,
– significant loss of value to communities in terms of jobs, spending, services and tax revenues.
The process opportunity in transition planning
Small business transitions are “process intensive”, meaning they involve many small activities that need to be understood, communicated and acted on. This includes the following areas:
– initial business assessment for risk and capacity to increase value production
– transfer of business operating knowledge among seller, buyer, employees, customers and suppliers
– improving operating processes to reduce risk and increase free cash to finance the transition
– detailed planning and coordination of the overall transition plan.
Small business transitions can benefit from skills with process methods.
– Process methods can increase the speed, accuracy and completeness of all of the process activities listed above.
– This can:
– reduce the risk of transition failure and
– increase the probability of a successful sale and transition for the business seller, buyer and community.
The process challenge in transition planning
Skills with process method are not widely available to small businesses.
– Individuals and organizations with process expertise are primarily focused on large organizations and projects.
– Most sources of skills with process methods come with barriers to adoption for small businesses, including complexity, training costs and cultural change requirements.
– Small local consultancies, who are in some ways best positioned to assist with small business transitions, may have process skills that are focused on only one industry sector, and not generally applicable to other types of businesses.
The ActionMap software-based solution
ActionMap transition support services, based on ActionMap software, can economically deliver highly effective process workshops and skills training to a wide range of geographies and industries.
More broadly, ActionMap software can distribute process method skills at the speed and scale that will be required to address the expected volume of small business transitions. These skills can be distributed to:
– small consultancies and management coaches
– business sellers and their staff
– business buyers
The distribution versus the direct use of these skills is expected to be of interest to:
– financial and legal advisors to small businesses
– local government economic development departments and agencies.
ActionMap is seeking individuals and organizations to partner with to develop and deliver process support for small business transitions.
If you are interested in learning more about ActionMap’s transition planning services for small businesses, please connect with us via our contact page here, for a conversation.