Succession is everything. Sooner or later, every company will have to face it. And for many SMEs in this country, in the not too distant future. According to estimates by the Bonn Institute for SME Research, around 190,000 company successions are due to take place between 2022 and 2026 because the management is leaving. The figures vary greatly from state to state – Bavaria, North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Württemberg are most affected. Due to demographic factors, the number of handovers per year tends to increase. Since most companies are family businesses, the internal family handover is the number one succession solution. But what happens if there are no competent descendants willing to lead the company? Then there are two options: Management buy-in (MBI) and management buy-out (MBO). What sounds complicated is actually quite simple: In an MBI, the company is sold to an external management, i.e. to a third party. And in the case of an MBO, the company is sold to management from within the company, for example to the management or employees. Whether the succession can be arranged within the family, within the company or outside the company, and which succession solution is best in each case, depends on the individual factors of the company.
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ESG is not a trend, but the way to responsibly shape the future. But what about ESG compliance in your own company? ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Governance and medium-sized companies are confronted with this in many areas. A sustainable ESG concept helps a company to define and achieve its sustainability goals, to be attractive to banks and to increase the value of the company. When developing and implementing such an individual concept, many questions arise that need to be clarified. A systematic and structured approach ensures the necessary transparency here.
Key competences are a valuable and vital resource in companies. A competent team makes the organization capable of action and brings the desired success. With the major transformation processes in the world of work, the demands on competences are also changing. At the same time, competent employees are becoming increasingly rare due to the shortage of skilled workers. Strategic competence management is therefore an elementary factor of future-oriented personnel development. Which core competencies are in focus varies from company to company and from sector to sector.
It’s the combination that makes the difference! Different skills, practical experience and solid expertise are the basis for our business. As diverse as our team is, our common basis is our affinity for medium-sized businesses and for the people who shape them.
Our Junior Consultant Lisa Schmitt
“Find people who will make you better.” – Michelle Obama
“Organizations do not commit violations of the law or misconduct. These are committed by people in the organizations.”
Compliance combines goals and functions to comply with laws and rules in the company and to create the framework that misconduct is avoided. In practice, compliance looks different for every company: Of course, every company has to adhere to the legal provisions, thus acts “compliantly” per se. But for a craft business, other laws and internal rules are important than for an IT company or a logistics company. All internal rules that go beyond the law are formed from industry practices, stakeholder expectations and corporate values.
THE MAK’ED TEAM combines its SME expertise with teaching
In the North Baden region, two strong partners with a clear focus on medium-sized businesses have come together. At the beginning of the month, we sealed our cooperation with the University of Applied Sciences for Management (HdWM) in Mannheim.
This means that teaching is now even more closely linked to practice – for more competence for SMEs. We are convinced of the efficiency of small and medium-sized enterprises and would like to help shape this efficiency by empowering young people.
Our office – a mini-campus for a few hours: We were delighted to welcome five students and their course director Professor Dr. Stäudner from the Mannheim University of Applied Sciences for Management (HdWM) to our Karlsruhe location on Thursday, 3 February 2022. The occasion was the presentation of a project that the students had worked out according to the task of THE MAK`ED TEAM.
The new year marks the beginning of the annual financial reporting season. All companies that prepare financial reports have to deal with the issues surrounding the preparation of their annual financial statements. Even if many of those responsible are not aware of it: accounting compliance forms the foundation here. It ensures that all relevant accounting rules are recognized and applied, and that the company’s assets and liabilities are valued correctly, so that the annual financial report is prepared in accordance with the rules.
THE MAK’ED TEAM introduced the learning management system Moodle at the peacekeeping school “École de Maintien de la Paix” and conducted a train-the-trainer qualification for online teaching. This created an important basis for successful online learning.
Since its foundation, THE MAK’ED TEAM has worked with a distinct international focus and is certified by iMove, an initiative of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) for the internationalization of German education and training services.
One of THE MAK’ED TEAM’s core competences is the establishment, development and management of training and education academies to promote skilled workers on site. That’s how we were selected for the project at the West African educational institution “Ecole de Maintien de la Paix” (EMP-ABB), which extended from November 2020 to September 2021, including the planning and start-up phase.
The decision to bring an external managing director into your own company requires a change in the owner’s leadership behavior.
In one of our client’ companies, this decision was made some time ago – with the best of intentions and a disastrous outcome!
The owner of a medium-sized company hired a managing director for a new subsidiary for the first time and renounced the usual board position himself. He had decided to do so for a variety of reasons and postulated that competence and responsibility were inseparable. The newcomer could and must manage his area of responsibility independently.
This sounded interesting to the “new guy”. He had gained second-tier experience with a larger competitor and now wanted to have overall responsibility.
