[Fredslist] Pro-Bono SWOT analysis for family businesses

[Rick Raymond]

Dear fellow Gothamites,

I will be teaching a course on Family Business in the Zicklin School  
of Businesses at Baruch College, CUNY, during the Spring ’10 semester.  
Zicklin is the largest business school in the country.  Students will  
be required to undertake a SWOT assessment with a local family  
business as an applied learning device.  We are looking for qualified  
family-owned businesses to participate in a Pro-Bono SWOT analysis of  
their firm.

The SWOT analysis, which is an investigation of the firm’s internal  
strengths and weaknesses, and external opportunities and threats, is a  
valuable business tool for understanding and decision-making of all  
sorts of situations in business.

Qualified participants must be a family business in the broadest of  
definitions (i.e., must be a business owned by a person who is also a  
part of a family unit where there is strategic influence by at least  
one other family member in the management of the firm by being either  
part of the management or a shareholder.  Other qualifications  
include: not a start-up or franchise business, and gross revenues of  
10 to 50 million.

Students will work in teams to review family-owned businesses relative  
to an examination of internal strengths and weaknesses of the business  
and the external opportunities and threats, investigating and  
analyzing major issues in the areas of marketing, production, human  
resources, finance, and management, relative to the business; and they  
will present their findings to the class at the end of the semester.  
Participant businesses will receive a copy of the final analysis and  
recommendations, and will be  invited to the class presentation,  
however, attendance is discretionary.  All information that  
participants share is discretionary, as well as will be held in  
confidence and only distributed among class members and myself.  We  
estimated that the completion of this project would take approximately  
5 to 6 contact hours over March and April.

The course is intended to provide students the opportunity to explore  
family business topics/issues such as business formation, growth and  
expansion, strategic management, professionalization, succession,  
locational choices, and family dynamics, conflicts, and relationships  
relative to the business. It also is an evaluation mechanism for the  
students.  Family businesses create more than 85% of all new jobs and  
generate nearly 50% of the GDP in the United States.  Family  
businesses generate more than 75% of the GDP in most other countries.   
Of the Fortune-500 companies, 37% are family-controlled.

Please Reply To Rick Raymond at rickraymond at mac.com. RESPONSE IS  
NEEDED BY JANUARY 31, 2010.  PLEASE FEEL FREE TO FORWARD THIS NOTICE  
TO QUALIFIED INDIVIDUALS.

All the best,

Rick Raymond






Richard Raymond Associates, Inc.
Leadership Performance and Entrepreneurial Development
Supporting Businesses In Being Viable and Sustainable
New York, NY • 212-777-0083
http://www.focusedbusinessleader.com/
http://richardraymondassociates.blogspot.com/


"In an entrepreneurial society individuals face a tremendous  
challenge,  a challenge they need to exploit as an opportunity: the  
need for continual  learning and relearning."
-Peter F. Drucker, The Essential Drucker

Team work is a choice, a strategic decision that one has to make ...  
if not, it might be better to choose to not work as a team"
-Patrick Lencioni





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.gothamnetworking.com/pipermail/fredslist/attachments/20100109/97e4994b/attachment.html