Changes became a part of daily living. Some years ago, the pace of changes was at much slower rate. A few hundred years ago, there was even less changes. But today the changes are accelerating in every aspect of our life. In our private life we see the changes every day.

Changes are reflecting to the business as well. Things that were actual yesterday, became obsolete today. Also, things that suit to the business needs today will not be good enough tomorrow. Every company and every employee within, need to keep up the changes. Otherwise it will become obsolete. It is in the human nature to look for the comfort zone and try to stay there. But in order to survive in today’s business environment, it is necessary to constantly move outside of the comfort zones. Otherwise the company is gradually staying behind the others and becoming obsolete in the business environment.

It is crucially important to understand that changes are inevitable. It is important for every individual to understand his/her role in making the changes happen and what is required to deliver successful and sustainable change. Some researches shows that at least 65% of change initiatives are failing. The implemented change that didn’t last a day after the project is “successfully” completed is also failure in the change process itself. There are many reasons for failure of changes.

People sometimes allow themselves too much easiness. They focus on one segment of change instead on all segments. They fail to make strong change team. They underestimate the power of vision, or they miscommunication the vision to all stakeholders. They may declare victory too soon. They forget that the culture is changing very slowly. Finally, they forget to follow up the change process.

Sustainable change management requires structured change process. There are many change management systems. The weakness of most of them is their complexity. Due to their complex structure they are not applicable to small, daily projects and changes. The good change management system need to be simple, but still robust enough to support every change process.

The first step in the change management process is the engage all stakeholders in the change process. It is necessary to build the sense of urgency for change. Objectives and benefits of change should be known. Establishing the sense of urgency is important, in order to gain cooperation that will bring the necessary change into the company.

In order to initiate the change process successfully it is necessary to form the team. The project team should present the sustainable power and expertise. The team needs to be composed of people that possess the various areas of expertise. The team should have power of position, expertise, credibility and leadership.

The vision should be the factor that will motivate and guide all stakeholders to the change destination. The vision need to clarify the future that will be different than the current state.

The change initiative needs to be communicated in a appropriate way. The communication needs to be done internally and externally. Proper communication of change process requires detailed plan. But, before we build the plan, we must make sure that we have sufficient technical competencies for communicating the plan.

People react in a different way to the change.Typical pattern of phases in acceptance of changes is through the following stages: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing and acceptance.

In order to sustain the change process you need to reinforce the process and follow up the results. This will require from manager to apply various types of support and pressure. The pressure needs to be applied according the situation. The purpose of the pressure is to produce creative tension that will lead to success.

If you are running a business, then you will require certain skills to ensure the success of the business venture. There are many business management skills required to successfully run a business, and some of them include proper planning, organization, troubleshooting, and coordination. These core skills are necessary to make the business a profitable and successful venture.

The most important business management skills required to run a business successfully are discussed in brief below:

Planning: This is the most important business management skill. All business ventures have goals and targets and the only way to achieve them is through proper planning. A part of planning involves predicting the consequences of taking a particular step or measure. Planning involves careful analysis of information and data, and this analysis helps the person to make effective decisions. Also, problems can be handled efficiently as planning involves troubleshooting and SWAT analysis.

Communication: Different situations demand different communication skills. Hence, whether it is negotiation or dealing with a tardy employer, effective communication skills are necessary.

Organizing: A business cannot flourish if it is not organized. When a business is organized, optimal use of skills occurs. Hence, it is imperative that a person managing a business has good organizational and coordination skills. This will also help keep the workforce focused on the business goals and allow them to work in a harmonious manner.

Financial Management: A business venture cannot be successful without proper financial management. Proper management of finances ensures that raw materials can be procured, inventory is not too high, and allocation of funds to different business needs is undertaken. Good methods of financial management can make all the difference between a business venture being successful and unsuccessful.

Inventory: A business should only store inventory that is necessary. If too much inventory is there, it will block the funds, which could have been put to better use. When there is inventory, other expenses increase, like storage, security and transportation. All these added expenses have an effect on the overall profitability of the business.

Ethics: Without proper ethics, it is not possible to run a successful business. In order to survive on a long term basis, the business should have ethical practices in place. This involves the way business is conducted, how the company handles environmental and other sensitive issues, corporate social responsibility, and how the business handles its workforce.

All these factors play a big role in ensuring the success of a business. Hence, business management skills are the new mantra, but they have been around for eons.

Every year thousands of businesses get born. Still most go under in a few short years. The business field gets more and more competitive and thus a business manager or owner has to become more skillful in the management process to keep his enterprise afloat.

To attain business success there are cardinal areas that as a manager you should not overlook. In fact the more skilled you are in these areas the more chances your company has of surviving and progressing. They form the core of what every business manager should know. Mastery of these key management skills will go a long way in determining how successful you become in business.

1) The Management of Cash flow; A great percentage of businesses that fail do so because of cash. It is either they do not sell enough products/services and so do not generate enough cash or they do not manage the funds they have wisely. Either way it is easy to see that cash is an integral part of business especially for starters.

What is cash flow? For a layman, cash flow is the movement, availability or otherwise of physical currency in, out and within the company or business enterprise for use in various purposes. The importance of cash flow can be illustrated by an example of a small firm that makes reasonable revenue from the sale of its products. After the statutory salary payments and fixed expenses the company owners decide to invest a greater part of the company profits in purchasing new office equipment and cars for the senior managers.

A situation arises where the company needs a substantial amount of money to deliver a bulk contract for supply of its products to a new buyer and payment was to be at the point of delivery. The company suddenly finds itself short of cash to carry out this new deal which is over five times higher than their average monthly orders and would require far bigger amount of money to fulfill. The bad decision of putting most of the firm profits into unnecessary purchases has resulted in a most unpleasant cash flow problem and the firm may be forced to borrow from its bankers or any other source to carry out the new business deal. Getting this alternate funding may take time and cause the small growing firm to lose the business.

Managing cash flow involves taking the right decisions on spending. What should be spent on? What is to be done with excess cash? This is a vital skill that should be handled without emotions by managers, business owners and CEO s. Many times selfish management has landed firms in deep financial trouble. Instead of new corporate cars, outrageous fat holiday bonuses for themselves managers should learn to create easily liquid money pots for their companies and channel money only where it is needed.

2) Management of Personnel; Getting the workforce under you to perform at its maximum is a most daunting task. As a manager you will come to discover how varied and irregular the moods of your workers are. However one thing is important to know as a manager of persons. Human beings all respond to certain emotions depending on their personalities. Your work will be to determine the personalities of people you work closely with and use the available emotional buttons on them. Emotions that affect people include; fear, greed, love, sex, anger etc

Discover the things that trigger your people the most and act accordingly. Managing persons means you will have to make a lifelong commitment to studying personalities and thus gently prodding people to their strong areas. Dale Carnegie’s timeless book ‘ How To Win Friends and Influence People’ will be of immense help in learning how to get the best from your people.

3) Management of Time; So many things have been written and said on this issue. In our modern world of sophistication, technology and fast living it becomes more difficult to manage our time effectively. Many experts in their bid to showcase their superior knowledge proceed with elaborate and complicated solutions to time management problems that end up consuming even the little time we have left.

Implementing some of the time management advice out there leads one deeper into time management difficulties. For an entrepreneur, business manager what is the best approach to time management. Effective time management is only a matter of commonsense. Commonsense time management consists of the following practical advice;

- Daily Planning; One of the basic lessons I learned while setting out as a young, inexperienced entrepreneur was to plan each day the night before or in the early hours of that particular day. It remains for me the most effective way to get the best out of my day. Day planning should involve opening the next page of your daily planner and drawing a line down the middle. On the left list all the tasks for the day and on the right delegate as many of the task as possible. Check through and pick the phone. Start right away to delegate the ones that can be done through the phone. Keep your daily plan flexible and do any important emergencies that emerge during the day. Time management does not require much elaborate advice. It is plain commonsense.