Strategic SME Succession Planning : Enhancing Value & Wealth Vis-À-Vis Organizational Diagnosis

Baby Boomers and other business owners are divesting their Small and Mid-Sized Enterprises (SME) for several reasons. Absent a well-planned Business Succession Plan, decades of knowledge, innovation, and wealth can be lost both to stakeholders and society alike. Although Succession Planning has been a strategic management part for many years, only recently has it become recognized for its importance, particularly as it relates to the creation of value that makes mergers, acquisitions, and strategic alliances possible, thus resulting in the continuation of an SME's past and current efforts. Only since 1991 has Intellectual Capital (IC) / Intangible Assets (IA) of SMEs start to become recognized as a trove of untapped wealth that could enhance the value and continuation of any organization. Notwithstanding the current difficulty in quantifying IC/IA, we propose that through the combination of strategic succession planning with organizational diagnosis may a forthcoming exit stakeholder find internal business assets that may be improved upon to maximize value and wealth for the SME, while simultaneously improving the chance of transition success at the time of exit execution. Exploration of this subject matter may serve to give Scholars and Practitioners fodder for theoretical/empirical research and practical application