SRI Explained

SRI stands for socially responsible investment. It’s an investment made in a company that conducts its business in a socially responsible way. Socially responsible investments can then be split up into multiple socially conscious companies or through a socially conscious mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF).

When looking into socially responsible investments, you should turn away from companies that produce addictive substances such as tobacco or alcohol. Instead, seek out companies engaged in social justice, are environmentally friendly, or utilize alternative energy solutions.

Socially conscious investing has become more prevalent in recent years due to dozens of new funds and other investment vehicles available to investors. However, these socially responsible investments should still be considered carefully. You must examine the company’s philosophy behind being socially responsible as well as the company’s profitability.

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How to Craft a Good ESG Strategy

Organizations can no longer ignore the importance of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) planning. Everyone from employees to investors to customers is taking a hard look at other companies’ ESG strategies to decide who to work for, invest in, or do business with. For an organization to stay competitive in today’s world, they have to have a sound ESG strategy. Building an ESG strategy is a daunting task, especially when considering all the variables and topics covered by Environmental, Social, and Governance. But no matter what type of company you are in, there are a few tips to help you craft a good ESG strategy.

Assess Materiality

The purpose of the materiality assessment is to hone in on the ESG topics that will most likely affect your business performance and the interests of your stakeholders. Though all ESG topics are essential, you cannot give them all priority. At the end of the assessment, you should have a clearer understanding of where you stand compared to your competitors and have some action steps planned for the future.

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How to Retain Employees During an Acquisition

Acquisitions present unsettling times for all involved in the corporate structure of a company. Anxiety always rises when something new and potentially threatening shows up. If employees start to feel like their jobs are at risk or their position within the company will be diminished it can lead to massive flights of workers from your labor pool. As a manager there are plenty of steps you can take to prevent the loss of your most productive workers.

Communication

Building up trust before, during, and after an acquisition is key to establishing clear communication. Whether your employee has been there for decades or months, they are all looking to you for clear answers in times of transitions. Specifically if an employee is new, make sure they still get training they require–often times new personnel’s needs fall by the wayside in hectic times. Create time and space to communicate with them one on one so that you can keep on top of unfounded fears. Make sure you have clear, honest answers for all questions and be forthright if you don’t have an answer. Making up something to assuage a fear feels easy in the moment but could have drastic consequences if it comes back on you. This goes double for information regarding individuals’ livelihood like benefits and salary. The sooner you can inform your employees of tangible ideas of what their compensation will look like, the smoother things will run for you in retaining the employees you want to keep. Some other key elements to keep your employees up to date on; integration planning, communication planning and organizational alignment.

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How to Lead Your Team Through an Acquisition

An acquisition or merger can be hugely powerful in driving a business’s success but when they go wrong they can destroy huge amounts of value. Appropriate, intelligent and sensitive leadership of the people impacted by the transaction is perhaps the most critical factor in the success or failure of transactions.

Listen

It is entirely understandable that people within organisations involved in mergers and acquisitions should be concerned. When organisations and their governance change people’s careers and ways of working and networks of personal relationships are likely to be impacted, not always in ways the leader has anticipated. It’s vital to create an environment where these concerns are shared with the leader so he or she can respond and address legitimate concerns before they become major problems.

What to Look For When Hiring a New Team

Know the capabilities and competencies required

It is surprisingly rare for companies hiring new teams to do detailed work to thoroughly assess exactly what they want a new team to do and therefore exactly what competencies are being sought. This can be hard to determine for the long term as the demands of all the participants in complex market ecosystems change, but to know in the near term so for at least 12 months what is likely to be required in detail is essential.

Hire a team not just individuals

It is unlikely any one individual will bring all the competencies required. Hiring is about building a team. Just as in sports having a superstar in one role is not going to bring success on its own. It’s more important to cover all the needs with players who can together do everything that is required.

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How to Shift Company Culture at a Newly Acquired Business

Buying and merging with a company is one of the top ways to grow your business, but it’s also very tricky. One of the most significant issues with merging is consolidating the company culture between the two teams. Even if leadership is happy with the merger, the team might not be, and overlooking the required shift in company culture could be disastrous. Here are some tips on how to shift company culture at a newly acquired business.

Unify them under one name

This is a simple one: generally, when two companies merge to form a combined entity, it’s better to implement a single name. Often, the larger one keeps the name, but if the smaller company has more growth potential or a stronger reputation, that might be the better choice. Or they can combine the two under a new name. No matter what course you choose, having one name and one purpose will normally help unify the teams.

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How Technology is Changing Private Equity

Technology is changing rapidly and dramatically in the world of private equity. Private equity firms can only outperform if they understand uncertain futures with greater insight than their rivals. They have to handicap the probability of different outcomes in a highly uncertain future. To do that they need more data and better analytics. They need not just greater scope and accuracy in their data processes but also greater speed.

This emphasis on data is not just about selecting investments more intelligently and valuing them with more acuity. It is also about enabling companies which private equity firms already own to deliver better products and services for their customers and to make their operations more efficient.

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Best Ways to Improve Day-to-Day Business Operations

No matter how great your product or service is or how strong your business plan is, you still run the risk of failing in business if your day-to-day operations are not as efficient as possible. Even one mistake can snowball into a disaster if you’re not careful, but there are things you can do to make the daily operation of your business run more smoothly.

Offload HR operations to a third party

You didn’t start a business to process payroll and hire new employees. Luckily, some people have started such companies, and you can hire them to take some of your crucial, but time-consuming human resources work away from you. It will free up many hours you can then dedicate to the business you wanted to start.

Keep it simple

You may have started a successful business because you do something in a unique way, and that’s a good thing. Maybe you started a popular restaurant using your great-grandmother’s recipes. Changing the way you make the food would be a bad idea, but there are always tools and software that can help you run the business side more efficiently. Utilize technology to help simplify your workflow and allow you to concentrate on whatever makes your business unique.

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Tips for Managing a New Team

Whether it be from a merger or a promotion, there are several ways in which you might find yourself managing a new team of people. Whatever the reason, gaining the trust of a new team of people is a challenging prospect for many. Thankfully, you are not the first person to find yourself in this position, and there are tips for managing a new team.

Prepare

When it comes to managing a new team, you either pay upfront, or you pay later, so it’s better to pay upfront. Take the time to get to know your team before launching into trying to achieve goals. Ask them questions like how the team fits in with the firm’s overall strategy and goals, how their performance is evaluated, strengths and weaknesses of the group, and anything else you deem essential. As a manager, you are part of the team too, and even though you’re in charge, you’re still the new person. Taking the time to prepare and learn the ins and outs of the new team will go a long way in building trust.

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What You Should Know Before Starting a Career in Private Equity

Working in private equity is an exciting and highly competitive field, but it’s also highly rewarding. Private equity firms pay big for their talent, and it’s little wonder why. Altogether, PE firms manage nearly $1 trillion in assets, which means even the smaller “boutique” private equity firms can only hire the best. If you want a career in private equity, here are some things you should know.

How private equity works

Naturally, the first thing you need to understand about private equity is how it all works, so here’s a crash course. Private equity firms generally buy a controlling stake or at least one large enough to have substantial influence in a private company and strive to optimise its strategy, operations and management in the hope of driving growth in sales and earnings. In addition to management fees if the private equity firm exceeds performance thresholds in terms of returns to its investors it receives a share of those returns.

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