Entrepreneurs are risk takers by nature, leveraging their insight, hard work, and capital to create successful companies. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs who become business owners don’t think about specific kinds of risk until they’ve experienced a threat first hand. Yet planning ahead is critical to mitigate many different kinds of risk and protect your business from losses. Your own risk exposure will depend on many unique factors—the nature of the business, your own personal tax and financial situation, and estate and business succession planning considerations.
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Communicating Across Generations in the Workplace
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For the first time in modern history, four generations are represented in the workforce. Each group has its own distinct characteristics, values and attitudes toward work. These differences can lead to misunderstandings and increased conflict, posing challenges for human resources. In this webinar, we looked at how to tailor communication and training, provide constructive feedback, and find ways to celebrate the unique qualities each generation has to offer.
A family constitution—the rule book that defines the vision and principles of a family’s wealth strategy and acts as an operating model—should be as unique as the family itself. The key to developing an appropriate family constitution is not in the ultimate output, but in the collaborative process of developing it. In working together, families often uncover factors which bind them together. However, the process can also elicit confronting discussions about what really matters to individual members.
Behind the scenes of the world’s leading industrial and manufacturing companies, a profound digital transformation is now underway. While terms like the industrial internet or digital factory are also used to describe the journey industrial companies are taking towards a complex value chain transformation, the term ‘Industry 4.0’ stands for the fourth industrial revolution and focuses on the end-to-end digitization of all physical assets and integration into digital ecosystems with value chain partners.
Consistent with the World Economic Forum’s mission of applying a multi-stakeholder approach to address issues of global impact, The Future of Financial Services Report completed in June 2015 provides insight into how disruptive innovations are reshaping the way financial services are structured, provisioned and consumed. Michael Drexler and Jesse McWaters will share insight into the transformative potential of new entrants and innovations on business models in financial services.
Innovation is the cornerstone of enterprise today as businesses compete in their ability to provide unique service offerings and value to the clients they serve. Yet, innovation without purposeful planning, strategic dialogue and targeted implementation is costly, non-effective and disruptive. Alexandre will highlight the concept of purposeful innovation and link the strategic and tactical dialogue to the unique trends and needs that are facing wealth advisors today and will continue into the future.
Aligning Culture: Making Culture Personal
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As research continues to validate the need for cultural alignment within families as well as between families and the advisors who serve them, there is continued need for effective assessments that measure culture and clear approaches to manage sustainable change.
A growing number of enterprising families in the US are showing an increased interest in participating in direct investments of all sizes. A segment of this interest is sparked by entrepreneurial family values, and the disappointing correlations between asset classes that occurred during the 2008-2010 timeframe.
It’s tempting to imagine the computer systems as airtight vaults, impenetrable and immune to cyberattacks. But this would be a risky move. In reality, IT infrastructure is more like a porous sponge with gaping holes where data can leak when things don’t go according to plan: a staff member might lose a laptop, a system might experience a configuration error, or sensitive information might accidentally be published online.
All companies hit bumps along the road to growth, bumps that usually have less to do with external factors like the industry and marketplace and much more to do with the natural way organizations evolve. The most successful organizations and enterprises plan ahead. They have the foresight, and they proactively make the proper organizational changes to accelerate them through the four phases of the business life cycle: startup, growth, maturity, and decline. There are seven critical factors to help navigate the transition and reignite growth.