Larkland Morley’s Professional Blog

Lately in the news, Yahoo has gotten a lot of flak that their board of directors have been very ineffective. I have had more personal experience with this scenario having worked for Nortel for roughly 10 years. Strange enough no one really hear much about the board in day to day company business except that they are a bunch of older people with some professional accomplishments in life.

The main issue I had with the board at Nortel is that for a technology company, almost no one on the board had any experience in technology at all and that was a big problem which turned out to be a key factor in Nortel losing its advantage in the industry and finally cease to exist.

What should we expect of a board? In my opinion, the board should set or approve strategy then monitor and correct over the course of time. This means they need to understand the industry of the company, have the CEO present the strategic plans, make recommendations for changes as needed then approve the final plan. They should get updates at least quarterly or monthly to ensure that the company is fulfilling the agreed metrics.

The board of directors should not just be about profiling and prominence but about being the compass for the organization and its success. Maybe, its worthwhile studying the composition of various company boards to see which ones have well aligned boards and their relative success.

This is really cool stuff on how to plan out your start-up business.

Another short and quick post. Most times you may think that a business plan is aimed at sharing things with outsiders but actually at the initial stage, its much more important for you actually. Its important to convince yourself objectively that you really have a good grasp of what you are trying to do. If you want people or banks to invest into the venture you need to convince them that it makes sense. Now, it does not mean your business plan has to be perfect upfront but the overall trust should be there to make the pitch without too much effort.

Some keys I can share to help with this off the top of my head.

1. Market research – this is a critical piece to see if there will be a demand for the service or product that you have in mind. Also look at the competition in terms of whats being offered in that market. If its a physical business; which location would suit you better?

2. Value Creation – How will your business add value to customers, employees and owners/investors? This is important piece of delivering something that will take you to the next level.

3. Cashflow Projection – Even without too much details, the key to success is to generate cash as fast as possible. You could get millions in orders but how much of that is cash in the bank to at least pay the bills soonest?

4. Execution Strategy – This is a critical piece before you get into details of operations and tactics. What are the strategies you will use to succeed long term. As we speak, lots of large companies are failing as they don’t have strategy in place to guide them for the long term.

Those are a good start for now, we will look into more details as I dig more into a useful and effective business plan approach.