Upskilling – Dutch Uncles

Skill Mapping May Solve Reverse Migration Problem

Shalmoli Sarkar — Tue, 20 Jul 2021 10:30:00 +0000

While preventive measures of lockdown and curfews were imposed to contain the virus, its brunt was largely borne by the daily-wage workers as the fear of getting contracted by the virus forced them to head towards their respective hometowns on foot leaving their jobs behind. With daily wage labourers migrating to their native hometowns the numbers of unemployment touched 11.4 crores in April 2020 in the first wave and within two months of April-May 2021 during the peak of the second covid wave, India lost a total of 2.25 crore jobs out of which the daily wage workers owned a lion’s share of 1.72 crores according to CMIE (Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy).

The sad state of the daily migrants caused by the lockdowns became more visible when a report from Stranded Workers Action Network revealed that 58 percent of the migrant families were hungry for days. The unprecedented times of the pandemic have thrown the migrant workers in tough dilemmas, where if they choose to go back to their native place their income becomes zero whereas if they chose to stay back in their hometown there are no employment opportunities. This further widens the gap between rich and poor and pushes more people under the below poverty line.

In such cases, a skill mapping of the migrant workers might seem to be a respite from the shackles of unemployment.

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During the peak of the second covid wave, India lost a total of 2.25 crore jobs out of which the daily wage workers owned a lion’s share of 1.72 crores according to CMIE (Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy).

Can there be a skill mapping initiative like SWADES for the daily wage workers as well?

For Indian citizens returning from abroad who were stranded in the pandemic, the government under ‘Vande Bharat Mission’ has launched SWADES (Skilled Workers Arrival Database for Employment Support) a joint initiative of the skill ministry, the ministry of civil aviation and the ministry of external affairs to conduct a skill mapping exercise for creating a database of qualified citizens based on their skill sets and experience to fulfill the demand of Indian and foreign companies.

Certain skill mapping initiatives should also be launched for the daily wage workers to create a database of what they did in their previous jobs. The collective information on hand can help the central and state government understand apart from the previous job, in what they can be trained to be employable where the manpower requirement is high. For instance, due to losses in the hotel and restaurant industry an ex-waiter can be further trained for welding metals in a metal fabrication company or can be trained to become a taxi driver as well. This might be a win-win situation for the native workers of the states that earlier due to the migrant workers, were unable to get the job. With the migration of daily wage workers, the state government can leverage the skill database and employ and train the ones present in the state. If this step, skill mapping exercise for daily wage workers is deployed in every state it will eliminate the need for workers to leave their respective states to find a job. Thereby giving them a source of income opportunity.

A collaboration with MSMEs and Central or State Government Needed

Several MSMEs are forced to shut down as they are not able to scale the operations due to manpower crunch. Several skilled workers have not yet returned from their native places. This opens a host of employment opportunities for the daily wage workers present in the state where the government by leveraging the skill mapping can upskill the workers to get employment in MSMEs where there is a severe manpower shortage.

The post Skill Mapping May Solve Reverse Migration Problem appeared first on Dutch Uncles.

Scale Your Business: Adopting The CENTS Framework

Kanan Shah — Tue, 22 Jun 2021 16:35:04 +0000

“No point in chasing money. The moment you start chasing money, money will start eluding you,” says Sameer Kaul, Entrepreneur, Market Leader and a Speaker to a virtual audience of startup entrepreneurs and small business owners. A 30-minute LIVE workshop on “Scale your business” was conducted by Dutch Uncles as a part of its ongoing workshop series – MentorED. This session was virtually attended by business enthusiasts on YouTube, LinkedIN, Facebook and Twitter with the intent to learn from the industry expert about how to scale up their businesses.

An award-winning management professional, Sameer Kaul has been acknowledged for launching, building, scaling and transforming many leading brands in India across sectors such as retail, FMCG, hospitality and healthcare. He was instrumental in launching the brand Windshield Experts in India from scratch to around 25 cities, transforming a small lab business, Dr Lal Path Labs into a national consumer brand. He has worked across Australia, India, USA with Boards of topmost companies. His 25 years of stint includes Oberoi Group of Hotels, VJT, Asahi Glass, Metropolis and Private Equity companies.

A Practical Perspective

In this workshop, the mentor put forth a perspective that every entrepreneur should adopt. He emphasized on:

Practical ways of looking at scaling up
Practical ways of looking at growth
Whether growth itself is required
Whether growth is a good thing for my business
What are the commandments of scaling up
What is the framework?
What do you look at when you’re scaling up?

To Scale, or Not To, That is the Question

Observing some entrepreneurs, Sameer Kaul points out an error in their strategy. “Sometimes out of nostalgia, we like that we should have 10 employees, 50 employees or even 100 employees in our company. But whether bigger denotes success is the moot point. Whether bigger is a destination or whether bigger is a strategic intent of a company is what one should analyse first.”

Kaul identifies two issues in the minds of business owners while processing a growth strategy. “A lot of times, owners of businesses or small businesses who have moved from zero to one, or zero to five, but would like to scale from five to 10, or five to 50 are always embroiled in this kind of a trade-off: whether they should grow or not.

They’re always in that kind of a dilemma. Sometimes it is to satisfy the ego of the business owner himself, other times it is out of competition or out of one upmanship that ‘we want to scale up the business or we want to grow the business.’ So, the first thing to understand is that bigger is not always better.”

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There is nothing called luck in business. But there are ways of becoming lucky in business.

Scaling Up is Always a Right Option: Bursting the Myth

Elaborating with a powerful example, Kaul says, “If Harvard Business School or if Oxford University were to open 100 campuses all across the world, recruit 1000s of teachers, 1000s of professors, would their quality be better? Would they do a better job? Definitely not.

Why is scaling up not a right option for Harvard Business School?

The mentor explains the shortcomings of plans to scale: The focus on quality, the focus on exclusivity, to focus on building a brand gets diluted.

“In certain businesses, in certain business situations, bigger makes sense. But in all businesses bigger may not be the right strategy for a company. So that’s the first myth I wanted to burst,” he states. Once this perspective is set straight, entrepreneurs can take the right decision, identify the right time and the right plan to scale.

How to Structure the Right Scaling Strategy for Your Business

Kaul affirms that the purpose of business is to scale. The purpose of business is to grow. But the parameters vary for each business.

“A size which is right for one company may not be the size which is right for some other company. Sometimes we have even heard big businesses saying that they always wanted to be more flexible,” he adds.

Have an opportunistic mindset

“The first thing of a business when they’re scaling up is to have an opportunity mindset.” Entrepreneurship is a learning process. The mentor guides that all business owners must “start learning to get lucky. There is nothing called luck in business. But there are ways of becoming lucky in business. And that’s a mindset, an opportunistic mindset.

First is to create the conditions, the groundwork or the platform for attracting opportunities to you.

Second is to spot those opportunities.

Third is to assess the opportunity. Just because there’s an opportunity, it doesn’t mean that’s the right opportunity for you.

Five Commandments: The Litmus Test to Scale Up

One should start small, but should always envision the growth from the very beginning. That’s the quality of a visionary entrepreneur. In the MentorED workshop, Sameer Kaul shares a very insightful framework: The CENTS Framework. It acts as a litmus test to scale up a business.

The CENTS Framework consists of 5 Commandments:

C – Commandment of Control

E – Commandment of Entry

N – Commandment of Need

T – Commandment of Time

S – Commandment of Scale

Commandment of Control

Sameer Kaul explains, “If you are a business owner, you want to be on the driver’s seat all the time. You cannot be a hitchhiker. You have to have control over the revenues, over the strategy of the company and over the whole business plan.”

“You shouldn’t be diluting your equity, you should be calling the shots, whether it is talent or whether it is strategy. Raising money is not about growth. Having control over the business is the first thing that a lot of promoters and a lot of entrepreneurs are losing out these days. So, the first commandment of scaling up which you have to build from the design stage is to have control.”

Commandment of Entry

“The commandment of entry talks about building a business that gives you some core competency. Either it is through your proprietary technology, or either it gives you economies of scale, as you grow,” the mentor explains.

Commandment of Need

It’s high time to adopt the new school mindset. “It talks about an outside-inside perspective which is called a customer-based business strategy.” Kaul explains, “You have to look at your customers, you have to look at the needs:

What needs are unmet in the market.

What needs a funnel?

In the market, is there a service gap?

Is there a pain point which is not getting addressed?

Is there an emotional disconnect?

Sameer Kaul asks all entrepreneurs to look at these perspectives and then start working on those.

Commandment of Time

Time should be in your control. Elaborating on the importance of this commandment, the mentor states, “If you are spending all the time in your business, you will not be able to scale it up. Then you have found yourself a job but you’re masquerading as an entrepreneur. That’s a different mindset.”

“We see a lot of these retailers, shopkeepers who are 90% involved in their business. That is why they build the business so dependent on them that they are not able to scale. Because they are not able to delegate or because they are not able to trust, they become small business people who can, at the most, run one shop but they cannot expand. If you want to expand you need to have control over your time. In fact, as they say, you should be able to make money while you sleep. A good business has to be a good business system.”

Commandment of Scale

Scalability is measured with two parameters:

Reach

Reach refers to the number of units sold

Magnitude

Magnitude refers to the unit profitability

“If you want to scale, you need to have both reach and magnitude. It is very important not to get a false sense of scale,” he warns.

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If you are spending all the time in your business, you will not be able to scale it up. Then you have found yourself a job but you're masquerading as an entrepreneur.

Expert Advice to the Attendees

In the workshop, Sameer Kaul also shared a strategic framework called a CN framework. The 30-minute workshop was followed by an interactive Q&A session. Many questions poured in including asking advice on identifying customer needs, understanding control in business, creating the right balance in equity and funding and climbing up the different stages of business scaling.

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Kerala Start-up Mission’s Zappyhire Speeds up Hiring

Anju Nambiar — Mon, 31 May 2021 06:05:04 +0000

Zappyhire provides an AI Talent Acquisition Suite which quickens the job hiring process for organisations. Zappyhire is a start-up based in Kochi, Kerala with a mission to enable spot on talent hiring at an accelerated pace. Founded in 2018, Zappyhire’s B2B product automates the recruiting process. It has transformed the recruiting experience both for candidates as well as for recruiters. Their intelligent recruiting platform is mainly aimed at cutting down the ‘time to hire’. Their end-to-end recruiting system performs screening, assessments, personalised engagements, and onboarding of the right talent.

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The company had bagged investment from a past edition of the Seeding Kerala Summit, KSUM’s flagship Angel Investors Summit.

KSUM and Zappyhire

Zappyhire is under the umbrella of the Kerala Start-up Mission. They are presently incubated at KSUM’s Integrated Start-up Complex at Kalamassery, Kerala. KSUM helped Zappyhire conduct its first hiring focused hackathon at the ISC in 2019. KSUM staff have also assisted Zappyhire with legal and accounting support. NASSCOM and KSUM have been pivotal along Zappyhire’s journey of scaling up. The company had bagged investment from a past edition of the Seeding Kerala Summit, KSUM’s flagship Angel Investors Summit.

How Zappyhire speeds up hiring

Zappyhire makes the traditional hiring process simple by facilitating quick induction of new hires. Their AI based platform leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its sub technologies like Machine Learning (ML) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to automate redundant tasks in the recruiting process. It transforms traditional recruitment into smart recruitment. Key tasks like repetitive back-and-forth with candidates, filtering out applicants with the best fitting qualification criteria are made smart with Zeppyhire’s technology solution. Zappyhire’s end-to-end recruiting system speeds up hiring through an intelligent, data-backed, and insight-driven process.

What’s in it for me?

Finding the best employee for the job is getting harder what with the disruptions of the pandemic which have seeped even into HR and job search. Talented candidates are unable to find the job that’s best suited for their skills. HR Tech solutions like the ones offered by Zappyhire bridges the digital divide between the employee and the recruiter who are a perfect match for each other.

If you are a start-up who thinks you can benefit from digitally hiring the best fitting candidates in quick time, consider investing in AI based recruiting solutions. It will make the screening process smart and intelligent, and your resources will be freed up from time consuming, redundant tasks. Small recruitment agencies and businesses across a plethora of industries can scale up much faster with AI based recruiting.

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What can SMEs Learn from Skill-Based Gaming Platform Zupee?

Aakash Sharma — Fri, 07 May 2021 11:05:04 +0000

Zupee is a skill-based gaming app that allows users to compete directly with friends, communities, and other players. Zupee essentially offers a positive and engaging experience to its users. It is marketed as the developer of a real-money gaming platform that provides trial lessons to consumers and helps them earn real money online.

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Zupee offers real money that users can use to participate in short tests on everything from movies to sports to education. Consumers can also earn their own money and ask questions online.

Gaming Sector- A Good Market Opportunity

Now is the right time to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses and create a testament to the digital imagination by providing fun and fair competition to connect people in meaningful ways. According to the latest figures, India is the world’s largest mobile game maker and consumer with more than 5 billion downloads.

The online gaming market is growing by 40% per year. India’s online gaming market is expected to reach $14 billion by 2025. Following Zupee’s story, many emerging professionals can develop new products that will attract the enormous consumer market in the Indian gaming sector.

How can SMEs in the Segment Build themselves like Zupee Gaming?

Zupee currently has more than 10 million subscribers on its platforms. New entrants and aspiring entrepreneurs in gaming, or even edtech, should take a leaf out of this start-up’s book to achieve considerable scaling growth. Zupee’s game tests multiple subjects such as math, movies, and fun. The user competes with many players for prizes and contests using an exciting and easy interface. In such a way, new businesses can work in different aspects to provide entertainment and information simultaneously.

Zupee’s Funding Activities

Zupee has raised $19 million in funding, including the recent round of $10 million. The latest round of funding came from the WestCap Group, a U.S. based VC. In April 2020, Zupee raised $8 million and pushed $20 million overall financings presented in the charts.

The company aims to develop its business further, increase market reach, improve user loyalty to the platform and provide a great user experience with a diversified implementation of the funds.

Can others follow the Zupee example?

India is the largest mobile gaming market globally, and there are many business opportunities in this market. Like Zupee, based on its skill, the debut of new Indian products in this category will make Indian businesses the market leader in the gaming industry. Under the current circumstances, the substantial cross-domain contribution to the latest technology is about to rise sharply. And it is a huge development opportunity for start-ups and entrepreneurs.

In 2020, online gaming exploded in India and Zupee’s rapid growth throughout the year demonstrates this development. Young entrepreneurs can make great strides, especially in a post-COVID world, as technology dominates everything; they have the opportunity to become stronger, more focused and genuinely resilient.

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Upskilling: The New Mantra for Small businesses

Shalmoli Sarkar — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 06:35:10 +0000

Series of lockdowns in the pandemic that stretched over three to four months brought tremendous losses to the MSME ( Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises ) sector. Though market restrictions have been lifted, the losses incurred during that period persist and are a huge blow for the MSMEs. With fresh new cases arising in 2021, the state government is looking forward to imposing lockdown again. Small and traditional businesses, to cope with the current pandemic, need to pivot their business operations to digital platforms or have a digital presence. Here, upskilling will play a major role.

As per the MSME Annual Report 2020-21, there are 63.4 million units of MSME businesses nationwide that contribute 30.27 percent to India’s GDP also employing 120 million people, hence making this sector the bedrock of India’s growth. The MSMEs lack the digital know-how to operate a business online, accept payments online, marketing businesses online which stood as a hindrance for continuity of business for the MSME sector. To keep businesses afloat in such harsh times entrepreneurs and small business merchants are stepping forward to upskill themselves with the new skillsets and unlearning outdated business practices to survive in this fast-evolving digital world.

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As per the MSME Annual Report 2020-21, there are 63.4 million units of MSME businesses nationwide that contribute 30.27 percent to India's GDP also employing 120 million people

How will upskilling be beneficial for the MSMEs?

The apprehensions of stepping out in the pandemic yet lingers at the back of people’s minds, due to which customers will continue online buying of groceries, non-essentials, appliances, etc. Here, small businesses should not fail to digitise their business operations.

India’s biggest conglomerate Reliance has launched JioBusiness that offers enterprise grade-level fibre connectivity, digital solutions and devices to empower the micro small, and medium businesses. It aims to bring together 50 million medium and small-scale businesses online.

Apart from conglomerates, B2B retail trade platform Udaan connects retailers and businesses to source merchandise from manufacturers, brands, white labels, importers, etc. on a single platform. It currently houses 30 lakh small and medium-scale businesses and retailers. Thus, small businesses need to upskill themselves to be able to run businesses online.

What Upskilling initiatives Companies are providing for MSMEs?

MojoVersity

Instamojo, India’s largest on-demand payments and e-commerce platform for startups and MSMEs has launched MojoVersity an online skilling platform for small business owners to provide them with the digital knowledge to start a business online. The MojoVersity platform has a total of 9 courses that consists of essential topics such as GST, email marketing, sales funnels, hosting webinars, business accounting, public speaking, MS Excel, etc. According to a recent Instamojo report titled ‘Indian e-commerce Outlook 2021’ its online skill learning programme received 40,000 new unique visitors, out of which 30% were female learners. The platform also witnessed learners from merchants belonging to Tier-II and III cities. 42% of the learners chose to learn skilling programs on their mobile devices.

Google for Small Business

Similarly, tech giant Google, under the ‘Make small strong’ initiative, has launched Google for Small Business to upskill the small business owners with knowledge of digital skills and tools for free. The skills training is in the form of quick help videos that will aid the MSMEs to do business online. The skill courses are divided into three segments namely :

Digital unlocked: Contains 90 self-paced video tutorials which offer quality training on a comprehensive set of topics right from building a web presence and driving online growth to reach customers over mobile to email marketing to social media marketing.
Primer App: It is a free educational mobile app that offers quick, bite-sized, jargon-free video lessons to help business owners and individuals learn new skills in digital marketing and business. The five-minute lessons cover topics like business planning, management, sales, customer satisfaction, online advertising, analytics, etc.
Skill shop: To develop digital marketing skills, Skillshop has e-learning video courses ranging from Google ads to analytics to ad manager, where the learner gets certifications of the course completed.

Areas of Upskilling in which MSMEs are focussing on

Instamojo’s report titled ‘Indian e-commerce Outlook 2021’ revealed MSMEs took interest in the below areas to upskill themselves

Financial stability was disrupted in 2020 for most small businesses. To insulate themselves from the cash crunch, MSMEs took interest in learning the aspects of financial discipline and fundraising.
Simplifying business processes and systems has attracted MSMEs, as they have realised that improvement of work processes and systems will gain a competitive advantage in cost and delivery.
Digitisation in businesses such as digital marketing, e-commerce adoption, automation in business processes are garnering attention from MSMEs. They are realising that if your business does not have a digital presence, then it cannot survive in the long run.
MSMEs are taking a keen interest in export and import business since the political tensions with China have strained.

For the MSMEs

Looking at the massive response of MSMEs willing to upskill themselves, these enterprises have showcased their willingness to learn new skillsets and ramp their business operations online. With a deluge of smartphones and cheaper internet plans penetrating deeper into rural India, there will be an increase in online shoppers. Thus, more and more MSMEs shall be interested in upskilling themselves with new skillsets to establish businesses online.

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How is Workday Innovating Human Resource Management

Shalmoli Sarkar — Fri, 26 Feb 2021 06:35:04 +0000

There is no denying that the amalgamation of technology in human resource management has disrupted conventional employee management in the corporate world. From, AI-based hiring to Big Data infused performance appraisal, the seamless technology integration in HR functions has eased the job. However, in a bid to reduce spending and hire the best of talent, new models of workforce like the gig economy, remote working, and AI-powered digital workforce are mushrooming and being adopted by corporates. With newer workforce models emerging, we need to revise our earlier deployed human resource management tools and processes. This calls for innovation in Human Resource Management (HRM) and this thought of innovating HRM as per the dynamic environment has been understood by Workday.

Founded in 2005, by David A. Duffield and Aneel Bhusri, Workday is an enterprise cloud software provider for financial management and human capital management. It delivers human capital management, planning, and analytics applications for the World’s Fortune 50 Enterprises.

Workday- Reshaping the HR management with technology

Charles Darwin had once said, “It is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives, but the species that survives is the one that can adapt and adjust best to the changing environment in which it finds itself.” In this scenario, the changing environment is driven by technology that is transforming every job. Those HR leaders will come across as survivors who can effectively manage the workforce while remaining agile to the changes.

Workday has developed and built solutions that can support a diverse and distributed workplace.

Elevating employee experiences by Machine Learning

Workday People Experience

By deploying Machine Learning, Workday is curating personalized experiences for each user. This product will aid the HR manager to gain insights about every employee in the organization and help in guiding career development to its employees. It can effectively process a large number of queries from employees regarding payroll systems. Workday People Experience increases productivity by quickly addressing issues. It enables the employees to seamlessly access information, tasks, and seek answers from any third-party source or application.

Talent management with Machine Learning

Backed by Machine Learning the Skills insights solutions of Workday helps HR managers to determine skill gaps in the organization by analyzing the existing skill set. This feature proves to be beneficial when the company is working towards a new business offering. The HR manager can leverage real-time dynamic footprint to understand if the employees possess the right skills to do the job. From the skills’ graph, the relationships between skills and job descriptions can be mapped.

Talent marketplace

It is a talent mobility platform that enables companies to find and borrow talent, and identify skill sets based on the type of projects, gigs, and other opportunities. Let us say, for instance, an employee who is interested in exploring new projects will receive opportunities to work in a different department based on the skillset the individual has.

Decision making simplified using Data Science

Workday People Analytics coupled with augmented analytics gives business leaders visibility into the most critical trends of the organization and its drivers in a story format.

Workday’s Discovery Boards, a drag and drop data feature helps users to quickly visualize data for forecasting financials, identify patterns, understand people and discover insights. HR managers can use Discovery Boards to understand the grey areas of business and understand where potential skill gaps might exist.

Workday’s acquisition with Peakon

With the onset of the pandemic, the workforce model has transformed to work-from-home that has its own set of challenges. 2021 started with Workday acquiring Peakon, an employee success platform to provide a continuous listening platform for employees. In a remote working model, the communication with employees is limited due to which the company is unaware of employee challenges countered. Thus, the companies must develop a system to resolve employee grievances effectively. The continuous listening platform will help understand employee sentiment, provide real-time visibility into employee experience, facilitate ongoing feedback and provide recommendations for actions. It will empower the HR leaders to gain insights into employee feelings, demands, and behaviour, thus fostering an inclusive work culture with improved organizational performance.

What Startups Can Learn From Workday?

Startups who are yet to begin their entrepreneurial journey should understand the drawbacks of employee attrition in the early stages of the business cycle. This would eventually lead to spending more money and significant time on recruitment causing a decrease in productivity. Therefore, understanding the challenges, skills gaps, arrangement of relevant training and learning programmes for new projects can prevent employee attrition and empower the employees. With new remote workforce models emerging, the startups or small businesses should leverage technologies like ML, AI or deep learning for an improved workforce management.

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Decoding Succession Planning in Business

Preeti Verma — Sat, 23 Jan 2021 08:26:10 +0000

We might have witnessed in many 80s’ Bollywood movies how the villain flaps a complex plot through forged Wills or keeps the legal heirs in the dark by embezzling the property papers. The villain may also try to prevent the heirs from fulfilling the conditions of the Will. Such plots have been turned into good suspense, thrillers as well as action movies. And after watching such movies, has it ever occurred to you to write your own Will? Quite likely that it did not trigger the thought. Have you ever imagined who is going to gain from the business empire that you have been building for years after you are dead? All of these efforts are somehow partly aimed at leaving behind a rich legacy for our loved ones? You need to bestow it to someone, preferably through a proper Will. The operational demands of running a family-owned business or other closely held enterprise can be all-consuming, but it is always important that business leaders take the time needed to assess their organization’s business succession planning.

The penalty for failing to get ahead of leadership or ownership changes can be significant, as the coming years may bring substantial transfers of wealth as businesses change hands and adopt new ownership structures. The long-term survival of a business, and the preservation of the wealth that has been built, will likely depend on getting ahead of those changes through strategic succession planning.

For private, sole-managed, or family-owned businesses, a solid succession plan can drive the growth of the business, reduce taxes, and set the stage for retirement. On the same side, family-run businesses may benefit further by focusing on preserving harmony within the family. Succession planning is not only an important and evolving process, but it needs to be an integral part of a company’s business strategy and operations. According to a study by the National Association of Corporate Directors, fewer than one in four private company boards say they have a formal succession plan in place.

There isn’t a good reason to justify the common oversight of not planning for business succession. Some business leaders are too caught up in the challenges of the present, while some have a subconscious aversion to the reality that they won’t be around forever, or assume succession Will work out naturally. Others are aware of the task’s true complexity and find it overwhelming. Ultimately, however, the reasons people avoid succession planning aren’t as important as the reasons they should embrace it.

For a business, working without a succession plan can invite disruption, uncertainty, and conflict, and endangers future competitiveness. For companies that are family-owned or controlled, the issue of succession also introduces deeply emotional personal issues and may widen the circle of stakeholders to include non-employee family members. The next 10 to 15 years are likely to bring substantial transfers of wealth through business ownership handoffs across generations and other new ownership structures. The long-term survival of those businesses, and the preservation of the wealth they have built, will depend upon a clear and early focus on strategic succession planning.

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For a business, working without a succession plan can invite disruption, uncertainty, and conflict, and endangers future competitiveness.

Understanding Succession Planning

Succession planning is a process that draws upon many business disciplines. Many privately held businesses display solid professionalism and enviable profits in their daily operations, yet fail to properly plan for and complete the transition to the next generation of leaders. Even the most sophisticated and knowledgeable business professionals can get caught in a web of complicated issues.

In fact, many business owners do not carry out a managed transition to a successor leadership team. In the case of family-owned businesses, only 30 per cent survive into the second generation, around 12 per cent survive into the third, and only about 3 per cent operate into the fourth generation and beyond. A solely-owned company’s owner usually has a personal vision to retire and sell the business ‘someday’, but he or she may not have adequately considered what it will take to make that vision a reality.

Even leaders, who profess they will never retire, have to acknowledge that no one remains at the helm forever. An unprepared new management group, or even a poorly managed transition to competent management, can trigger significant loss in value. If leaders want their businesses’ intrinsic value to remain intact for the benefit of their successors, they should start the planning process sooner rather than putting it on the back burner.

Many leaders choose to embark on a long-term program to identify and then groom the company’s future executives. In some cases, a careful planning process may reveal that selling the business instead of maintaining successor ownership really is the answer for their situation. Not all succession plans are created equal. If your business has a succession plan in place, the questions on the facing page can help determine how effective that plan and your current practices actually are.

However, what goes on in the minds of the promoters to effectively decide the succession planning is driven by various factors, few being, applicable laws, preservation of wealth, limited liability, synergies of thoughts, flexible structures, ring fencing of assets, timing to initiate succession planning, cross-border presence, amenability of structures to tax and other duties. Similarly, the laws governing the succession are critical for any succession planning, but the choice of successors, who may not necessarily be only from the family, is an important factor for the same. Unlike individuals, in case of corporate houses, succession planning is rooted deeper to choose the right structure, who can lead the group companies, and the composition for the board of directors for the group companies and the rights that the promoters, including their successors, should have.

Need of a Succession Planning

Succession planning is a multidisciplinary process. When you engage in succession planning, you are not just focusing on the future, you are preparing for the future. However, without a deep understanding of the present it is impossible to plan for the future. Leaders have to know the current reality of their businesses; how they operate, where the value lies, what their needs are, and who their most vital customers are, in order to prepare for new leadership and new structures that can provide continuity in the ways that matter.

Succession planning is also important for preserving family wealth planning in advance, the future of family’s businesses. Several iconic national and multinational businesses started off as family businesses, and here they are. Think of the companies like NewsCorp, Reliance Industries, Walmart, Ford Motors, Tata Group, Volkswagen, Dell, BMW, Samsung, TVS, Birla Group, Jindal Steel and many more to count on. Around 90 per cent of the worldwide gross domestic product (GDP) is created through family-run businesses. And India is one of the countries, where family-run businesses are predominant. The family-run businesses make up 79 per cent of India’s overall GDP.

The traditional view on succession planning is focused on inheritance through a Will and the wishes of a person after his death. However, this method of estate planning is not necessarily conducive to all kinds of assets. In the past, it has been found that most of the family disputes in relation to ancestral wealth arise out of testamentary dispositions. The most unfortunate thing in such disputes is that they can go on forever and the wishes of the testator often do not materialize.

Be it the country’s biggest conglomerate or small family businesses, everyone is grappling with succession planning to ensure that the wealth is safeguarded. The clear case of entire Raymond group dispute between father Vijaypat Singhania and his son Gautam Singhania is an akin example of the importance of succession planning, especially in a family driven business. The feud between the father-son duo became really ugly, where the Raymond Group promoter and chairman Gautam Hari Singhania made a statement, highlighting the gravity with which the succession planning needs to be looked at:

“Tomorrow morning if I die, god forbid, there are identified people who will take charge of everything. Raymond can run independently and competitively. My children are very young. I have a responsibility to my wife and children, to my employees and shareholders, my banks, institutions and customers”

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When you engage in succession planning, you are not just focusing on the future, you are preparing for the future.

Similar is the case between the media scion Rupert Murdoch and his son James Murdoch of News Corp; and Yes Bank. The Bank is also juggling its fate of who will be at the helm of affairs after the erstwhile promoter and managing director Rana Kapoor had to step down after the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) directions.

Indian Succession Laws

The origin of Indian succession laws can be traced back in the year 1865, when a draft of the Indian Succession Bill was first submitted by the third law commission in its first report for the year 1854-55. Originally, it was proposed as the Indian Civil Code, a title which was later altered to Indian Succession Act, 1865. A number of legislations relating to succession were passed from the year 1865 to 1925, and all these legislations were consolidated in the year 1925 and the Indian Succession Act, 1925 or Succession Act was enacted.

A separate legislation governing Hindus, including Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs, was enacted in the year 1956, namely the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 or Hindu Succession Act. Accordingly, Hindus are governed by the Hindu Succession Act and certain other provisions of the Succession Act. Muslims have their own textual law of inheritance, while Parsees, Christians and the persons, whose marriage is solemnized under the Special Marriage Act, 1954 are covered under the Succession Act.

Testamentary Succession

This means succession by way of a ‘Will’. A Will is a legal declaration of the intention of the testator, an individual who makes a will, with respect to his property which he desires to be carried into effect after his death. The registration of a Will is not compulsory but if desired it may be registered by the testator during his lifetime.

Intestate Succession

When a person dies without making a Will, his property devolves as per the provisions of Succession Act and Hindu Succession Act, applicable to Hindus, and it is known as intestate succession. In case of intestate succession, (i) if the deceased was governed by Succession Act, a letter of administration is required to be obtained from the court of competent jurisdiction for administration of the property of the deceased; or (ii) if the deceased was governed by Hindu Succession Act, the property devolves in accordance with the provisions of the Hindu Succession Act, to Class I heirs, Class II heirs, agnates or cognates, as the case may be.

Hence, succession planning should indeed be considered as a must-have for any organization for ensuring continuing management, growth and development of the business without any disruptions.

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Upskilling: Embracing Evolution for Industrial Revolution

Kiran Kennedy — Sat, 26 Dec 2020 05:53:49 +0000

The first time you do an internship at a company you see it as an opportunity to learn and grow in the industry. Towards the end of those long months, you might think: “Well at least I know the basics, now, onto the actual work-life!” Unfortunately, or fortunately, that is not how things work.

The reality is that every day is a learning experience in any industry, regardless of the number of years you have under your belt. There are hundreds of new concepts, work methodologies and economical changes which have to be integrated as time goes on. Take the COVID19 pandemic, we all had to learn how to adapt to the change in work style with the work-from-home approach. So, you can never really say for certain that training and upskilling will not be needed in the future. With that said let us get down to it.

What Is Workplace Training And Upskilling?

Training or Upskilling is the process of quite literally upgrading the employees’ skill set to suit a job. This can take various forms such as seminars, short YouTube video tutorials or workshops. The aim of it is to help the employee use these new found skills to do their jobs more efficiently. It is your responsibility as a business owner to ensure that they are well-trained to get the job done.

For new employees, it serves as an opportunity to gain some exposure to the industry and the inner workings of the business while training. Older employees would approach it from the point of view of someone trying to keep up and adapt.

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Quality work and results require a team of people who are well-versed in various aspects of the business. The type of training they receive will determine the outcome.

What Makes Upskilling So Important?

Apart from putting your company ahead of the competition in terms of efficient workflows, training also serves to improve other aspects of the business. This could include the rate of sales, the team dynamic and final output quality. Here are a few ways in which training and upskilling can be crucial:

Promotions and retention

Employees need to feel that an organisation is willing to go the extra mile and invest in their careers. There should be room and opportunity to grow within the walls of the company and self-improve. The more opportunities the company presents for them to participate in training the more lateral growth there is. New skills and added knowledge make for a higher chance of getting promoted which makes for a satisfying work experience. This satisfaction motivates employees to invest back into the company for longer amounts of time and the retention levels go up.

Saving time and money

Trying to find and hire the right candidate for the position is a time-intensive process, add to that the extra cost the company has to pay for their salaries and it becomes a capital-intensive process. On the other hand, if you were to upskill your existing employees to do the job, you save both time and money and improve the quality of your employee pool.

Help identify lagging areas

During the process of upskilling, you will easily be able to identify where all your employees are lagging. Once identified you can help widen those horizons and improve the overall performance of employees. If done regularly, it becomes a practice in periodical self-development.

Different Types Of Training and Upskilling

On-boarding

Onboarding as a whole goes one step further and aims at training new employees in their specific roles in whatever area or department they may have been selected for. It could span over a number of days in the form of workshops or mentorships. This type of training is very narrow and targeted to a specific role so employees can get to work as soon as possible, in the most efficient way.

Orientation

Orientation actually falls under onboarding as one part of the process. Every company and even most institutions for that matter, have an orientation process. You may have heard of it on your first day at college where they told you all about the new curriculum and what classes to go to. That is quite similar to what you might expect in the industry. Usually conducted by the HR department during the intake process, the company seeks to educate employees on a wide range of topics.

The topics covered could include the organisational culture, the mission and vision of the company, the organisational structure, policies, office timings, admin detail distribution (logins and passwords), benefits and so on.

Technical skills

These are the skills employees will need for their jobs. They might already have them and find this training to be an opportunity to sharpen those skills. Think of them as the primary skills used on a day-to-day basis. For example, a coder might need to learn Python or Java computer languages in order to perform the task – that is a technical skill.

Soft skills

Remember those classes in high school and college about the importance of interpersonal communication? That is basically what soft skills boil down to. This type of training helps refine workplace-etiquette to enable employees to effectively communicate and work cohesively. The better the soft skills between employees, the better the corporate culture exists within that company.

Product/service training

Whenever you walk into a store to buy a new phone there is always someone who comes available to explain what that particular phone does. They explain the features, the price tag, the benefits of the device over others, warranty policies and so on. That person might even give you a demonstration of how certain features work.

This is what we call product and service training. It gives employees the skills to provide certain services to the customers including how to talk to them and it helps the employees gain a thorough knowledge of a product. This training is usually implemented in sales and during the launch of new campaigns.

Quality control

This training usually takes place in production-heavy businesses. It gives employees the skill to maintain a certain level of quality that is expected by the company or the industry. In some cases, employees will receive a quality control certification once they complete training.

Safety training

Similar to quality training, employees receive a certification once done, usually in hazardous work industries like construction sites, oil rigs, the foodservice industry and so on. The training aims to minimise work-related injuries and ensure a safe work environment for everyone.

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It is not just about equipping your team with the right skills, it is also about regularly updating those skills to match an ever-changing work environment.

How To Upskill Employees

Formulate the plan

As you might have noticed above, there are a multitude of training areas that a company could pursue, therefore, you need to identify which of those areas are of the highest priority based on the nature of your business. Once the key skill areas have been identified you can start planning. It also helps to keep in mind that people are still human and that they can usually internalise a handful of skills at a time.

Quality over quantity is the way to go, so set an achievable number of goals. In small business, the type of training that is most often required is soft skills for those in leadership positions. This helps drive up employee retention.

Host regular sessions or seminars

Training and upskilling are not a once-in-a-blue-moon activity. It needs to happen on a regular basis so the skills are retained over a longer period of time. Companies that prioritise frequent upskilling activities like seminars and conferences hold the edge over the competition.

Use employees as trainers

Why struggle to find a trainer when you already have highly-skilled persons in the company? Peer-to-peer is often more effective than a top-down method like in school. You remember better when your classmate showed you because both of you are in the same position and understand each other’s point of view.

Mentoring or shadowing are some such examples of how this can be achieved. The new employees follow and observe the more experienced employees as they work and learn on the job. It is highly effective and saves a lot of time while easing the new candidates into the role.

Cross-train for different roles

Some organisations train their employees to do multiple job roles, for example, fast food restaurants need to have employees who excel in taking orders, interacting with customers, operating the cookware and maybe even managing the shift schedules. The point of this training is to ensure a diversification of skill and lateral growth.

It also comes in handy if, on any given day, you are short-handed. For example, when an employee calls in sick, there is always someone who can help cover that shift and keep the business running.

Use all the tools!

Training does not have to be restricted to long-winded speeches and endless workshops. In this day and age, you have access to so many platforms and multimedia tools. Use them all. You could make use of training videos, suggest interesting and immersive podcasts that employees could listen to or even share a step-by-step pamphlet that ensures flawless execution of the task. The options are endless.

The advantage of sharing virtual instructions or things like a training video is that employees can revisit them at any point in time to re-absorb the information.

Having said that, and despite the various forms of training and techniques, upskilling is often a much-underestimated aspect for most businesses. So, no matter what tool, technique or training you choose to implement, just remember this – training is an essential element in the development of a business.

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