Turnaround Management

"Il contributo analizza, con un approccio economico-aziendale e comparatistico con le esperienze internazionali, la crisi e il declino dell’impresa, intesa quale cellula ed attore del tessuto economico. Gli stati di declino e di crisi dell’unità aziendale vengono descritti attraverso l’indagine delle possibili cause e i relativi effetti partendo dalla considerazione secondo la quale l’azienda, per svolgere in modo proficuo la propria attività, deve mostrare attitudine ad una economicità adeguata e duratura.
Secondo la teoria del valore, la vitalità dell’impresa può essere misurata in termini di capacità prospettica di accrescimento del valore del capitale economico (ΔW); se la propensione alla crescita rallenta per poi invertirsi, significa che l’impresa sta distruggendo valore nel tempo, palesandosi la situazione di declino. Se alla redditività negativa seguono gravi e crescenti ripercussioni sul piano dei flussi finanziari, della solvibilità, della perdita di credito e di fiducia, siamo di fronte ad una situazione di crisi. Se lo stato di crisi avesse matrice esclusivamente finanziaria, sarebbe sufficiente ripristinare tale equilibrio per risolvere lo stato di dissesto. Tuttavia, nella maggior parte dei casi, lo squilibrio finanziario rappresenta soltanto la manifestazione ultima, che certamente va ad aggravare ancor di più le perdite, di patologie aventi altra origine, specialmente economica. La crisi è poi solitamente conseguenza del progressivo deterioramento di situazioni di squilibrio e di inefficienza di origi-ne interna e/o esterna; è data cioè da una situazione latente che diviene manifesta solo quando è giunta in fase acuta, al verificarsi del c.d. trigger event (evento scatenante) conseguenza di una tardiva o assente efficace reazione da parte del management dell’azienda.
Nel primo capitolo, sulla base di tali premesse e sottolineando che l’etimologia stessa del termine “crisi”, mutuato dal campo scientifico, ne evidenzia il carattere di poliedricità nell’ambito dell’analisi economico-aziendale, si è indagato il processo di formazione della crisi d’impresa e le relative tappe.
Il secondo capitolo è dedicato all’analisi dei processi di turnaround, intesi come un insieme organico di misure riparatorie, formulate e poste in essere nell’ambito dei piani di risanamento a supporto del processo.
Nel terzo capitolo sono, in particolare, analizzate le operazioni mediante le quali si procede alla ristrutturazione del debito e gli interventi in cui questa si articola: ricorso a nuove risorse finanziarie, partecipazione al capitale di rischio dell’impresa risananda e operazioni di asset restructuring (ossia quegli interventi sull’attivo patrimoniale finalizzati alla produzione di un ammontare di liquidità addizionale rispetto a quella generata dalla gestione ordinaria, al fine di attuare dei piani credibili di rientro del debito nei confronti dei creditori cui si propone il piano di ristrutturazione).
Nel quarto capitolo particolare attenzione è stata dedicata all’analisi dei modelli predittivi dello stato di crisi dell’impresa approfondendo l’analisi discriminante basata sugli indici di bilancio e sul valore di mercato delle società quotate (capitalizzazione di borsa)."

To say that school reforms are a contested area is something of an understatement. There are some strongly held opinions in education about what improves a school, such as raising teaching standards and reducing class sizes.

Our findings challenge some of these beliefs. To understand how to turn around a failing school quickly, using as few resources as possible, we studied changes made by 160 UK academies after they were put into remedial measures by the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (OFSTED) up to seven years ago.

So what did we find? Like any turnaround, there is no magic bullet — a series of remedial steps need to be taken. And each step’s impact depends and builds on the previous steps in the sequence, as well the school’s location, because the latter determines access to good leaders, teachers, and students.

Purpose -This paper aims to offer a conceptualization of how and why corporate level strategic change may build on historical differentiation at business unit level. Design/methodology/approach -Methodologically, an historical case study of Nokia Corporation's drastic business model transformation between the years 1987 and 1995 is reported. Findings -The conceptual and historical work results in a process model of business model change, demonstrating how central business units feed strategic alternatives and capabilities to the corporate-level transformation process. Practical implications -The results highlight the importance of corporate level "market mechanisms' that allow promising strategic alternatives to emerge and select out inferior options. In this process, a key mechanism is the exchange of executives and cognitive mindsets between business units and corporate headquarters (CHQ). Originality/value -The reported research offers an original contribution by showing the dynamic interplay of cognitive and organizational change processes, and highlighting the importance of building on existing capabilities and competencies despite the pressure to demonstrate strong turnaround activities.

Review
The book is very well written and easy to understand. The structure is clear and makes it easy to find what you need. A lot of examples make the book very interesting. Quickly it becomes clear that the author is an expert in the field, he answers pretty much every question about Franchising, Licensing, FDIs, the Greenfield Strategy, M&As, Exporting, etc. The cultural- and pitfalls-part of the book gives this book a "competitive advantage" over other books in this area. I really enjoyed reading it and I am sure that it will help other professionals in the field as well. Dr. H. Maler --Dr. H. Maler --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.


Product Description
This book is aimed at students and professionals who are interested or involved in international market entries or product launches. The focus of the first part of the book is on market analysis, competitive positioning and common pitfalls of multinational companies. Franchising, licensing, joint ventures, the Greenfield strategy as well as mergers & acquisitions are explained in detail with their advantages and disadvantages. The accompanying case studies for each entry method illustrate common problems outlined in the text. The second part of the book introduces the reader to the influence of culture on international market entries. Managers will find important advice in this chapter on what to take care of, how to prepare for and to avoid cultural clashes. Each market entry strategy has its impacts on the corporate culture of a company, on its people and on the environment.

In times of economic decline, increased attention is devoted to companies in financial difficulties. Partly as a result of this basic fact, many countries are currently working (under pressure) to improve existing insolvency legislation. This seems to be largely fuelled-as is the case in The Netherlands-by a strong desire to prevent bankruptcies as much as possible.

Design thinking is a business practice that takes a meta-analytical approach at problem solving and organizational optimization. The concept of design is most often associated with artistic or creative endeavors, but with business design thinking, design is applied toward organizations in order to facilitate operational improvements. Design thinking is an ongoing process and is action-oriented. It is a dynamic approach that is constantly analyzing, questioning and modifying in order to recognize problems and create innovative solutions. Ultimately, business design thinking is about making organizations better through careful examination, creative deliberation and skillful execution (Brown 2008). In this paper we will explore business design thinking in depth. The different steps of design thinking will be analyzed and explained, and the overall design process will be mapped out so it can be more easily understood. We will then examine the ways in which design thinking can be effectively applied in

Abstract- In this adverse economic environment a great deal of attention should be devoted to the warning signs of decline so that we can transform it into a crisis and promptly seek turnaround options. The ferment created with the entry of the turnaround fund operators has given new energy to our investigations. We first analyzed the importance of the crisis prediction methods. Then we examined the possible causes which lead to a crisis and among these we highlight the problems related to corporate governance. We carried out an empirical study and we explained our preliminary results. We identified a panel of venture capital-backed SMEs in turnaround (cluster) to analyze three aspects:
1-if firms heading towards a crisis can be detected earlier through warning signs;
2-we tried to verify the restructuring role of corporate governance, with the definition of a good governance index for SMEs (scG);
3-we completed a crossover study with an analysis of the firms’ post-restructuring performance and we repeated the sintering of an ad hoc indicator (scP).
In conclusion, the analysis of important management aspects through the development of an index Z-score, scG, scP, allows us to compare situations that are not readily comparable in terms of accounting. This is just the first step in our work in progress and we aim to expand the sample, introduce more extensive comparison samples, apply other crisis prediction methods and test the indicators in other situations.

Purpose – The paper aims to assess the impact of corporate strategy on shareholder value in decline and turnaround situations.

Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 45 turnaround firms was selected and matched against a control sample which did not face continuous decline over the time period studied. The impact of corporate strategy on shareholder value was tested using cumulative beta excess return measures to capture the long-term basis of corporate strategy.

Findings – The paper finds that the beta excess return measures captured the hypothesized relationships between strategy and shareholder value for the sample firms studied.

Practical implications – Beta excess return measures are superior to case studies or event studies for identifying the long-term effects of corporate strategy.

Originality/value – Relatively few studies have compared the strategies of turnaround firms with a matched sample of non-declining firms. The use of cumulative beta excess returns to assess long-term valuation of corporate strategy is original.

The main focus of financial management is on growth, profitability and flow of
funds. This focus helps management create enough wealth to achieve market
dominance. ln strategic financial management, the corporate strategy is dominated
by financial decisions; not the other way. This article illustrates how one component
of financial management-strategic working capital management-helps develop
corporate strategy and ultimately ensures the survival of the firm. It also highlights
how strategic current asset decisions and strategic current liabilities decisions
have multi-dimensional impact on the performance of a company.

When organizations that have survived traumatic reversals – for example, product failures, ethical scandals or market disruption – attempt turnarounds, they usually seek a fresh start, adopting a new strategy and installing new leadership. But if this new initiative doesn't work and the firms continue to suffer from chronic under performance, the cause could be " transgenerational response, " a potentially crippling long-term condition stemming from the trauma that occurred in the past (see the cases of AIG and Yahoo).

This article distinguishes between a firm’s corporate business model and business models of its various business units. Our aim is to provide new insights into how executives’ cognitive processes can influence corporate business model transformation decisions. We focus especially on top managers’ recognition of inter-organizational cognitions, that is, such cognitions about the firm and its businesses that are shared by the top managers and stakeholders of the firm in the industries and communities where it operates. We support our theoretical work with an historical case study of Nokia’s corporate business model transformation between 1990 and 1996, which proved highly successful. We find that its transformation involved using the current reputational rankings of Nokia’s businesses as selection criteria for which businesses to retain and which ones to divest – as well as the elimination of businesses which embodied business model elements which were attributed as factors in past business failures.

Discuto a característica principal da crise, a perda de controle. Sua reversão, por consequência, passa necessariamente pela retomada de controle. Porque a liderança seria fator decisivo para um projeto de turnaround eficaz, alé de saber gerenciar.

PurposeThe paper aims to assess the impact of corporate strategy on shareholder value in decline and turnaround situations.Design/methodology/approachA sample of 45 turnaround firms was selected and matched against a control sample which did not face continuous decline over the time period studied. The impact of corporate strategy on shareholder value was tested using cumulative beta excess return measures to capture the long‐term basis of corporate strategy.FindingsThe paper finds that the beta excess return measures captured the hypothesized relationships between strategy and shareholder value for the sample firms studied.Practical implicationsBeta excess return measures are superior to case studies or event studies for identifying the long‐term effects of corporate strategy.Originality/valueRelatively few studies have compared the strategies of turnaround firms with a matched sample of non‐declining firms. The use of cumulative beta excess returns to assess long‐term valuation of...

Business Enterprises are an integral part of a nation's economy. They are incorporated with an aim to create value to the society. With growing industrialization of the Indian Economy, the incidence of industrial sickness has also been on the rise and a huge amount of scarce resources of banks and financial institutions remain locked up in the sick units. The process of bringing an organization from sickness to health is known as turnaround. Different organizations adopt different strategies for bringing about turnarounds. In this study, case study methodology has been adopted, which has aimed at understanding the internal and external causes of sickness and the turnaround strategies adopted by a private sector organization, ASM Technologies Limited. The dataset used in this study were spanned over the period from 1998-2014, by collecting various sources of data from Business India, Business World, Money Control and CMIE (Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy) Prowess database. I...

In 2000, when companies across the globe were scrambling to decode and implement the enigmatic new business strategy "Customer Relationship Management" (CRM), I had already spent a decade reengineering businesses to integrate this breakthrough structure into their DNA.  Buzzwords come and go, but when one of them promises to build shareholder value by driving customer acquisition, retention and profitability to unprecedented levels across the enterprise, business leaders latch on.  And they did.

In a piece I wrote that March for Customer Interface Magazine entitled The Value of Long Engagements, on what would later become Customer Experience Management, I took a back-to-basics approach and refocused the buzz on the customer as partner.  From partnership springs loyalty, retention, rising lifetime value and, consequently, shareholder value.  Start driving cross-functional process changes to align business processes around the customer and you'll be headed in the right direction.  Easier said than done, or I wouldn't have seen the need to write my book Upgrading the Customer Matrix a decade later in 2010.

Today, with more than twenty years of experience as Chief Customer Officer and Marketing Operations Turnaround Leader under my belt, I am helping companies supercharge profitable growth as a management advisor, board director and private investor.  The low-hanging fruit is long gone.  What's left are the hard problems to solve caused by shaky foundations, rapid growth and antiquated business processes.

For turnaround leaders like me, this is the really fun stuff.

This is the story of the fall of Anton Schlecker’s empire of seven thousand shops with thirty thousand employees, but I would not write this article if I did not believe that Schlecker’s empire could be rescued. There is no question about the urgency of a rescue plan: currently, Schlecker loses about €20 million every month, so deep cuts will have to be made, as it is too late to adopt a strategy that simply avoids further declines in profits or market share. It is also too late for heavy investments and higher credit lines. It is time to determine what went wrong, what can be rescued, and what makes economic sense.