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Category Archives: Business Planning

The challenge of merging two corporate cultures

teik oh oldTeik Oh The most challenging change management initiative is the proper management of a successful merger between two organisations. While the actual steps and processes in themselves are not uniquely different or any more complex than any other business reorganisation, the cultural environment in which a merger takes place creates a very different situation. Unlike any other change management engagement where disparate groups at least work under one singularly identifiable organisation, a merger brings together two totally unique groups with different core values and working environments that need to go through the same change and emerge united. In a merger, while there are usually areas of “fit”, it is unlikely that the deeper indicators of corporate culture such as corporate history and corporate experience will have any but the most remote of matches. Mergers and acquisition transactions are usually entered into to gain advantages yet the vast majority of these transactions are done with scant thought on how best to maintain the strengths of both parties and indeed to use them to synthesise greater strengths. Accounting models are not the best indicators for merger success; in a merger 2 plus 2 rarely equals 4. The prime...
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Recession Proof Your Business

sorry closedIs this possible – to recession-proof your business?  Well no, probably not despite the wealth of articles about how to do so appearing on the internet (about 614,000 hits on Google). However, what is possible is to secure your business as much as is possible by following a series of simple and common sense business strategies.  These strategies are no different from strategies you should employ under normal circumstances, but which application is much more acute in today’s economic climate, and with a different emphasis required.  Sadly when times are good, businesses allow themselves to get “fat” and some of these every-day disciplines are allowed to slacken. The strategies can be grouped into defensive and offensive strategies.  As you look at your business performance it is likely that you will find profit performance heading south, and with the economy looking the way it is, it is difficult not to panic and begin to tighten all the hatches.  However you can tighten too much, to the extent that your business finds it difficult to operate normally.  Hence, while it is natural to concentrate on the defensive strategies such as cutting costs,...
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Happy New Year – Start Planning

It’s the start of the new year for business, the start of a new tax year, but even more important, the start of a new business year. Picture12 While it is important to “re-set” your tax systems and tax plans for the year ahead, consider why you pay taxes. Taxes are paid on profits, and the ultimate tax plan is to simply make losses – however, not a great plan for your business and personal wealth! So, while we would all like to keep the Taxman at bay, ultimately the secret of your success is to make your business grow. It is an old adage: “businesses don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan”. Yet time and time again surveys show that fewer than 3 to 7% of small and medium businesses that fail have ever done any business planning. The start of a new business year is the best time to start a business plan. You can “close the books” and think about new initiatives and ideas about your business. It is the business equivalent of making your New Year resolutions, but with a better process that can lead to follow-through and...
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The Vision Driven Plan

Stephen Covey, author, personal and leadership development guru is coming to Perth for a seminar at Burswood on the 29th of May next week. For those of you who cannot attend and who have not read his books The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and Principle-Centred Leadership, I suggest you get those books and see how a business can be run effectively on core-principles. At OTS Management we believe in placing our core-values squarely in the centre of our planning and business decisions. Our Vision Statement drives our everyday behaviours, moulds our culture and provides the parameters for our long-term strategic planning as well as our annual business plans. Vision_mission_goals_core_values When we facilitate planning projects for our clients we start with the end in mind and ensure that the client has an enunciated vision for the business and that it is quantifiable so that each goal and objective can be squarely measured as well as relate in a straight line from the vision those goals and objectives are designed to achieve. Our model is that, from the Vision comes clarity of action. Your planning project should:-
  1. Clarify and Quantify...
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OTS Management