Product liability
The chances are fairly good that any company that manufactures products will face a product liability suit point. More and more of the risk of product-related injuries has been shifted to manufacturers, creating a legal minefield that could prove disastrous to a growing company. Even if a company carefully designs and manufactures a product and covers it with warnings and covers it with warnings and detailed instructions, that company may still be vulnerable if misuse of the product results in injury. For a company to be legally liable, the product must defective and an injury must have occurred. But in a litigious society, those requirement don’t stop people from initiating lawsuits even when there are no grounds. Most product liability insurance covers the costs of defense, personal injury, or property damage, but not lost sales and the cost of product redesign. Moreover, if the insurance company must pay on a claim, the entrepreneur’s premiums will no doubt increase.
A growing company must plan for potential litigation from the very inception of the business. One proven method is to establish a safety panel that includes people from all the major functional areas of the business. During the start-up phase, that panel may consist of only the entrepreneur and or two outside advisers with experience in the area. It is the job of the panel to review safety requirements on a regular basis, establish new ones when necessary, and document any injuries or claims against the product. Prior to product introduction in the marketplace, the panel should see that careful records are maintained of all decisions regarding final product design, testing, and evaluation procedures. Advertising of the product should contain no exaggerated claims or implied promises that may give customers the impression that the company is claiming more safety features than the product actually possesses. Implied promises con be used against the entrepreneur in a court of law.
Cyber Risk
One of the more recent and company that is doing business online faces is cyber risk: hacker attacks that could bing the business network down, phishing attacks , spybots, and the ever-present viruses and worms. In 2006,the CSI/FBI Computer Crime and Security Survey found that 29 percent of all U.S. companies have now secured insurance policies polices to manage Internet risk, an increase of 25 percent over many exclusions that one company figured the price was close to what it would cost
Succession Planning in Family-Owned Businesses
Entrepreneurs who head family-owned companies face special problems because they tend to look to a son, daughter, or other family member to succeed them. Succession in a family-owned business will not happen unless it is planned for, however. In fact, over half of family-owned business don’t continue into the second generation.
To start the procession planning, all the active family members should participate on a committee to explore the options. Some of the questions to examine are the following.
- Is the next generation being sufficiently prepared to take over the business when the time comes?
- What is the second generation’s expectation for the future of the business, and is it congruent with the company’s vision ?
- What skills and experience does the second generation need to acquire?
- What would the ideal succession Plan look like?
Decline in Sales
When sales decline and positive cash flow starts looking like a memory, entrepreneurs often go into a period of denial. They start paying their suppliers more slowly to preserve cash, they lay people off they stop answering the phone, and they insulate themselves against the demands of their creditors. Their panic frequently causes them to make poor decisions about how to spend the precious cash they do have. They figure that if they can just hold on long enough, things will turn around. Unfortunately, this attitude only makes the problem worse, effectively propelling the business toward its ultimate demise. How can an entrepreneur lose touch with the business and the market so much that he or she puts the business at risk?
CALCULATING THE PROBABILITY THAI RISK WILL OCCUR
It is extremely difficult to calculate the probability that a given risk will occur with any degree of accuracy. Consequently, any cost – benefit analysis conducted will probably contain flaws and may even cause the company to decide that the cost of protecting itself is nearly equal to the cost of the loss .16 Nonetheless, it is important to gauge, based on industry and customer knowledge, the chance that a particular risk will occur and what the impact of that occurrence will be on the company. For example, an entrepreneur might want to how many widgets to order for the summer season. He knows he can sell 50 in a day and that he makes a profit of $10 each. The average number of days in the season is 95. Thus he multiplies 4,750 widgets $10 to get average profit for the season. H has just committed a common error that Sam Savage, a consulting professor at Stanford University, has called the “flaw of average.”17 The problem with averages is that they mask risk. Savage claims that average inputs don't always produce average outputs. For example, if a lower – than –average demand produces lower – than – average revenues, then a higher - than – average demand is not possible because the company would have made only enough product to satisfy an average demand. This kind of error is quickly exposed when doing probability modeling such as Monte Carlo simulation, which models behaviors under multiple uncertainties within a specified period. It is often used in the insurance in dust to model accident risk. Working with this type of modeling software is an effective way to get a feel for the risk inherent in any business Understanding the magnitude of a potential loss is important in deciding whereto devote limited resources to protecting against a particular loss. Assigning a level of significance is again an arbitrary exercise, becausethe weight given to any risk impact is based on the company 's goals, core competencies, and focus.