Rohit Bansal - IIT Roorkee

Succession Planning: A key toSuccessBy Neha VermaThe consequences of unplanned succession will have a major impact on theorganization's ability to achieve its goals and strategic targets"Succession Planning" was initiallyrelated to family businesses as a concept,as it answered the question that howwould the management of the business bepassed on from generation to generation?In the corporate world it was narrowlyfocused on the CEO position. All CEOswant to avoid the mistake of choosing awrong successor. But unfortunately, thetrack record of even the most successfulCEOs in this regard, has beendisappointing. Consider the legendaryCEO, of Coke, Roberto Goizueta, whohad identified „Ivester‟ as his successorand made it clear to one and all longbefore his death who his successor was.Yet Ivester was found unfit for the taskand had to resign after a couple of years.Ivester, being an accountant was goodwith numbers and had the reputation of astreet warrior, unlike Goizueta, thestrategic thinker and delegator.Learning from others‟ experiences andwith time, Corporations began to realizethat the ongoing stability of their entiresenior management teams was just asimportant as ensuring a plan for the CEOsuccession. Many a times organizationsdon't have internal career developmentprograms or career pathways definedbeing able to quickly and easily identifyinternal candidates with the necessaryskills, experience and competencies to fillvarious key positions. The collection andretrieval of such data is a great help toimplement succession planning activities.By identifying skills and abilities neededfor various positions, and bycommunicating them to the workforce,companies can proactively source internaltalent, and on the other hand employeesare enabled with proactive careermanagement. Internal job changestherefore are not limited to promotionsonly, but many organizations are into defininglateral moves as well. Succession m-anagement is therefore mainstream humanresource management.