Achieving Business Longevity – Going Beyond the ABC’s.

In his letter to shareholders that accompanied the 2014 annual report for Omaha, Nebraska’s sprawling Berkshire Hathaway Inc., Warren Buffet, the longtime chairman and chief executive officer, stated that he had chosen a successor, predicted potentially tougher times ahead in the quest for growth at the company, and identified 3 (“three”) historically recurrent business challenges that could fell even the oldest and largest of businesses:

 

“My successor will need one other particular strength: the ability to fight off the ABCs of business decay, which are arrogance, bureaucracy and complacency. When these corporate cancers metastasize, even the strongest of companies can falter. The examples available to prove the point are legion (…)” (Emphasis added).[1]

 

As shown in my May, 2014 post on corporate crisis management,[2] there are a whole host of “issues” that can befall a company, and severely damage or even destroy it if not properly addressed or prevented in the first instance. I would therefore not only echo Mr. Buffett on these three potential maladies that he has identified, but add 6 (“six”) more that I have repeatedly seen in my work experience and research, to total 9 (“nine”) such avoidable agents of business decay.

 

These other six, are:

4. Debt;
5. e-Issues (eCommerce, the environment, employment practices);
6. Fiscal and Competitive Malfeasance (tax evasion, fraud and financial statement/disclosure issues, market abuses);
7. GRC (governance, risk, and compliance) Failings;[3]
8. “Hue & Cry” (public reaction – including social media campaigns, boycott calls, and general “sanction or reaction traction” with regulators or prosecutors regarding an adverse event involving the company;
9. i-Issues (most commonly being – incomplete or inappropriate preparation for surging demand, shoddy or absent contingency planning, insufficient capitalization, unreliable or skittish funding sources, and inattention to ongoing management obligations especially in supply chain quality control and general logistics, operations safety and security including cybersecurity, outsourcing and vendor competence and regulatory compliance, and oversight of all of these to include an adequate, available, and recommended internal whistleblower apparatus, and enforcing strict information governance and document retention policies).

 

A review of recent and historic business news will yield more than enough examples for each and every point, and so I will not go out of my way to name names. Suffice it to say, that if you want real business longevity for your venture – regardless of its current stage or state, then as with everything else, you need to look far beyond, and cover much more, than the mere basics or the ABC’s, and consistently so.

 

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Author:

Ekundayo George is a lawyer and sociologist. He has also taken courses in organizational and micro-organizational behavior, and gained significant experiences in business law and counseling, diverse litigation, and regulatory compliance practice. He is licensed to practice law in Ontario and Alberta, Canada, as well as in New York, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C., in the United States of America. See, for example: http://www.ogalaws.com. A writer, blogger, and avid reader, Mr. George has sector experience in Technology (Telecommunications, eCommerce, Outsourcing, Cloud), Financial Services, Healthcare, Entertainment, Real Estate and Zoning, International/cross-border trade, other services, and Environmental Law and Policy. He is a published author on the National Security aspects of Environmental Law, has represented clients in courts and before regulatory bodies in both Canada and the United States, and he enjoys complex systems analysis in legal, technological, and societal milieux.

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[1] Warren Buffet. Letter to Shareholders for Fiscal Year 2014, at page 37.  Posted on berkshirehathaway.com, February 2015. Online: <http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2014ltr.pdf>

See also Luciana Lopez and Jonathan Stempel.  Warren Buffett says Berkshire has ‘right person’ as heir.

Posted on reuters.com, February 28, 2015.  Online: <http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/28/us-berkshire-buffett-letter-idUSKBN0LW0MG20150228>

[2] Ekundayo George. Corporate Crisis Management 101 – The A, B, Cs of Lessons Learned.  Posted on ogalaws.wordpress.com, May 7, 2014. Online: <https://ogalaws.wordpress.com/2014/05/07/corporate-crisis-management-101-the-a-b-cs-of-lessons-learned/>

[3] Ekundayo George. Governance, Risk, and Compliance (GRC): a 4-part policy framework. Posted on ogalaws.wordpress.com, October 21, 2012. Online:<https://ogalaws.wordpress.com/2012/10/21/grc-an-overview-part-1/>