Sustaining and Transitioning Business

This unit focuses on advanced management, finance, legal, and human resource decisions that sustain growth, protect value, and prepare a business for transition or exit. Students integrate prior coursework to diagnose operational problems, optimize tax and cash-flow outcomes, manage personnel effectively, and assemble external advisory resources.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze operational and financial indicators to identify at least three actionable opportunities to improve cash flow, increase profit margins, or accelerate accounts receivable collection, and estimate the projected impact of each action
• Apply human resource and management best practices by developing a hiring, onboarding, performance management, and termination plan that includes an up-to-date organization chart, employee manual elements, and strategies for role evolution and employee motivation
• Evaluate tax, depreciation, and accounting rules (including entity selection, equipment expensing, automobile depreciation, interest and meal deduction limits, and net operating loss provisions) to recommend compliant strategies that minimize tax liability and cash-flow risk
• Demonstrate the ability to assemble and use external resources by creating an advisory and resource plan that identifies when and how to engage bankers, lawyers, SBDCs, SCORE, incubators, and training providers and that outlines a feasible exit strategy