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This issue of our newsletter looks at three management issues that every executive, owner and manager ought to be seriously thinking about.
The first is document retention and the reasons why every business needs to have a formal document retention policy in place. Too often, the lack of such a policy can become a “smoking gun” for companies called upon to produce both paper documents in a filing cabinet and electronic messages such as e-mail in a lawsuit, a regulatory proceeding or before a tribunal.
How many of you work in organisations with a formal document retention policy in place? We have a short
questionnaire on the subject. It asks only eight questions and will take less than two minutes to complete so we hope that you participate. The results will be covered in the March edition.
Then we look at the way manufacturing companies in England are dealing with cost-and-profit squeezes from Asian and other off-shore competitors, and examine the lessons Canadian companies can take from the British experience.
Finally, we offer a real-life case study highlighting how several Canadian businesses use interim management to help them overcome specific, short-term challenges or to take advantage of new opportunities.
I’d like to conclude with a short, personal note. We just completed our most successful year ever, and I want to thank everyone for expressing their confidence in Atticus Interim Management during 2005 by using our Principals to help them succeed. We look forward to continuing our work with you in 2006.
Sincerely,
Greg Petkovich
President
Atticus Interim Management
Don’t Let A Faulty Document Retention Policy Become Your Company’s “Smoking
Gun.”
Not
just publicly-traded companies need a strong, up-to-date document retention policy.
Every business that might be sued, brought before a tribunal or face regulatory
scrutiny needs one – and not just for paper documents.
While most publicly-traded companies probably know they need an effective document retention policy, many privately-held businesses do not realise that they should have one, too.
Obviously, companies that might be sued by a customer, supplier or employee need such a policy. But any business that might find itself before a federal or provincial tribunal for things such as an environmental accident or industrial injury, an anti-competition investigation or even the employee benefit plan – to name just a few common examples – should have a policy in place, as well.
The plan must cover not only printed documents stored in a filing cabinet but also e-mails, intranets and other forms of intra-company communication.
Courts are becoming increasingly tough on companies that are not able to produce all relevant documents, handing down fines and even issuing summary judgements. For example, in the United States, a former UBS AG equities trader won a $29-million sex discrimination suit award in which she had requested that the bank turn over all internal communications about her. The bank produced 350 pages of documents, but the plaintiff knew there were more -- she had retained some. Part of the award was for punitive damages against UBS for not being able to produce e-mails under the document discovery motion.
While US examples are often exaggerated because of the outsized financial awards that are so common, one Toronto law firm estimates that more than 75% of all Canadian corporations are involved in at least one lawsuit or adversarial tribunal hearing at any given time. One way to prevent the other side from finding a “smoking gun” in your business if you become part of the 75% is to have an up-to-date document retention policy.
If your organisation does not have a document retention policy, or it has not been updated recently, Atticus can help. We would be pleased to refer you to law firms that can assist you if you do not have outside counsel. Call either Greg Petokovich or Ron Fedderson at 416.644.8695.
The February Survey: Do You Have a Formal Document Retention Policy?
Please take a moment to participate in our February survey on document retention
policies. Click here to answer the eight questions. The results will be published in our March newsletter.
Interim Management Offers Relief for Hard-Pressed Canadian Manufacturers
Experience in the United Kingdom shows how Canadian companies facing cost or profit squeezes can use interim managers to become leaner and fitter, faster.
It’s not news that Canadian manufacturers are facing increasingly serious profit and cost squeezes from off-shore competition. Even after boosting productivity, reducing labour costs and more aggressive selling strategies, many Canadian businesses are still struggling to remain competitive.
What is news is that a new study in Britain reveals how UK manufacturers are finding that using experienced interim executives helps them overcome the same kind of pressure on margins as Canadian businesses confront. Interim management has been a common business practice in England since the 1980s. where companies now spend £500-million annually for the service.
Read
the full article
CASE STUDY: Managing Unexpected Growth
When a company needed senior executive help, it needed the talent right away.
Heather Erickson had a problem.
Her company, Spectrum Payroll Services Inc., was growing faster than projected. Founded in 1997, Spectrum’s small staff does payroll outsourcing. But a late winter sales blitz in 2004 produced a raft of new clients. Coupled with faster-than-expected growth from existing clients such as a boutique brewery, these new clients posed a problem for Erickson. She realised she needed help before, as she put it, “we grew ourselves to death.”
“I started the business with three goals,” Erickson explains. “First, get as much payroll work as possible. Second, process it accurately. Third, be profitable.”
The first two were relatively easy to achieve. But last year’s sudden growth made staying profitable difficult.
Making skills work - Myth of the natural-born leader
‘We don’t spend money on training so have to fall back on learning by experience’
IT IS something of a cliché that we expect our leaders and managers to arise unbidden and untrained from the ranks. Leadership and management skills, according to this school of thought, are hard to learn and quantify. In any case, our best managers whether from the worlds of sport, politics or business are natural leaders.
Chairmen and chief executives regularly argue in their annual reports that “our people are our greatest asset”, but companies often persist in avoiding the issue of management skills and training.
Source: TimesOnLine - November 29, 2005
Read
the full article here
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