Succession Sans Business Disruption

Most solution providers are first generation entrepreneurs, who take all the
responsibility and strategic decisions for their company. Therefore they are
also the ones who have to decide

the succession plan in their organization.

This touchy topic was well debated at the SP Summit and the panelists were
Ajay Sawant of Orient Technologies, Devendra Taneja of PC Solutions and to give
a perspective from the other side of the table was Sudhir Nayar,
Director-Partner Sales, Sun Microsystems India. The discussion was moderated by
Vinita Bhatia, Executive Editor of DQ Channels.

Starting the discussion, Sawant opined that in most companies like his own,
business continuity has already been put in place where the entity is run by
multiple people. Therefore, the final decision of selecting a successor has to
be taken considering the hierarchy of the family and the organization.

“An entrepreneur has to make his family and the organization understand the
hierarchy of his organization and has to appoint a team that can take decisions
in the absence of the company leader. When I am not in my office, I have a team
who can take decisions on my behalf and they play the role of decision makers
and take the responsibility of every task they execute,” said Sawant, while
expressing his views on succession planning.

(L-R) Ajay Sawant of Orient Technologies, Devendra Taneja of PC Solutions and Sudhir Nayar of Sun Microsystems formed the panel which discussed the important of succession planning and why it is essential

At this point, Shiv Modi of Kolkata's Trisita Marketing said that as a
company evolves, a solution provider has to look at his organization beyond
himself. “He needs to ensure that in the eventuality that he is not available
for sometime there should be continuity in the work flow. Therefore it is
important to ensure that the business goes on uninterrupted despite any change
in management,” he noted.

Need of the hour

The question that most people had on their mind was whether there was a need
for succession planning or not, given that most entrepreneurs expect that in
their absence, their kin or a key lieutenant from the company would execute the
tasks on his behalf.

This is when Nayar shared that succession planning was something that not
merely partners, but even vendors had to consider. “Vendors also face similar
challenges and come across several aspirations. Hence it is compulsory for
managers to define their successors in a team. The succession planning is done
in a defined format in the organization and the team leaders have to maintain it
as a regular exercise,” Nayar agreed.

He noted that normally people shy away from taking on such job role as it
needs a lot of skills and assets. Agreeing to that, partners in the audience
also acknowledged that running an organization is not an easy task and therefore
there is often a need to get experts involved in identifying people who can be
groomed as successors, at least in MNCs.

But, the scenario is quite different in the solution provider community and
partners who are MDs and CEOs also act as HR Managers, where they do not hire an
external body to manage manpower. In such a situation it falls upon the
entrepreneur to identify the people who can form the core management team and
see who can be the future successor from amongst them.

However, then there is a good chance of favoring the wrong person. As per
human nature, promoters have their own favorites but while selecting team
leaders they need to keep in mind the employee's skillsets and not merely the
rapport they might share with him.

S Nautiyal of New Delhi's Spark Technologies said, “In case of organizations
like ours, it is the entrepreneur who has to decide who will own and run the
business. He has to identify the leaders, but while doing so he needs to pick
those people who have the caliber to compete in the industry.” Rajiv Kumar of
Proactive Data Systems noted that this is one of the domains in which only few
team members are willing to on take the challenge.

The right choice

So how does one decide the right set of people to run the business? Sharing
his views on the matter, Sawant mentioned that when a person is delegating the
responsibilities to his team members, he should assign the relevant authority as
well.

“That person should not only be assigned responsibilities and asked to
execute tasks; he should also enjoy the complete authority and be given a sense
of ownership. Along with the responsibilities, the power of decision making has
to be handed over to him, irrespective of whether he would take all the business
decisions with the same strategy and mindset.”

One would have to accept that the person might take some decisions that is
not as competent as the entrepreneur. But if the authority has been provided,
his decisions should be respected and followed. “One has to show trust and
confidence on the person for all the decisions taken by him after he gets the
authority,” Sawant said.

Sharing the practice of identifying a successor in his team, Nayar added that
in Sun certain programs are designed that encourage the people to bring out
their best. They are provided with the liberty to accomplish tasks in different
style so that it helps the senior people to identify the future leaders and each
person is encouraged to make three mistakes, so that they can improve of the
same.

But Taneja cautioned people not to be overtly enthusiastic and declare their
succession plan well in advance. “Doing so is akin to revealing one's will.
Suddenly you will find a lot of friends and an equal number of foes. You will
also find a lot of competitors suddenly without your own organizations,” he
noted.

Amrita Tejasvi

amritat@cybermedia.co.in