It seems that the faster the pace of business, and of life itself, the more we all seem to be in a rush to "get the deal done"... from the way that Congress rushed through financial bailout -- er, I mean "stimulus" legislation -- to the uber-instant way that business demands most everyone to "give me an answer - and, right now".
Unfortunately, this ultra-high speed frenetic race to an arbitrary and often imaginary finish line induces us not only to get there before the other guy (wherever 'there' is), but it also lulls us into a false sense of settling for less than - or, what I refer to as "good enough is good enough".
Obviously, cases in news, such as Bernard Maddoff, Sir Robert Allen Stanford, and that of Samuel Israel III (a markets whizz at Bayou Management, the hedge fund that collapsed in 2005 after defrauding investors out of $450M), remind us - albeit often way too late - that DUE DILIGENCE is much, much more important than most individuals and business give it credence, and that "good enough" often is actually not good enough.
We must fight the urge to haphazardly approach business issues from the perspective of "Ready, Fire, Aim!" when it comes to performing the proper types of DUE DILIGENCE investigations.
The current market climate demands all of us to really know who our customers, consultants, suppliers, directors and employees are. Risks abound in business at rates never before seen.
While certainly not an all-inclusive list, some risks that come to mind range from internal or external risks of theft of a firms intellectual property and critical information, to understanding whether a "potential business partner" has a skeleton or two (or three, or four) in the closet that would --at the very least -- raise some ethical questions from the Board of Directors if known, to deciding whether the investment plan is almost too good to be true, to protecting one's business from cyber threats from Romania or Korea or some other corner of the globe where a hacker would rather break into the system for what they can easily steal, instead of watching syndicated reruns of "The Jerry Springer Show", to knowing whether the key employee candidate that is the front-runner is actually who s/he represents themselves to be.
DUE DILIGENCE is more than checking a person's general information to verify that they live or work where they said they do... nor can all of the work required to obtain the degree, accuracy or depth of information necessary to make a cogent decision be obtained with a few Google™ searches (no offense to Google).
It often requires that you verify the secondhand or third hand information by investigating first-hand sources of information. And, when business goes global, the need for International DUE DILIGENCE increases exponentially... as do the complexities of obtaining the information necessary to garner a fact-based decision.
"So, who has the time and who has the where-with-all to do this? We've got day jobs, you know..."
Today's business climate is moving at Warp Factor 9. Costs are rising and the need to support and bolster the bottom line is a formidable opponent to the one commodity we seem to have the least of -- time.
Fortunately some of us are privileged to help firms that face situations like these within the course of our day jobs... And, while much of the work is not glamorous (no... we actually don't get a date with "the Bond Girl"), it is critically important to engage the right resources to help you perform the proper type and degree of DUE DILIGENCE to get the answers you need.
If you're feeling a bit inundated by the "Ready, Fire, Aim!" approach that the rush and clamor of the world seems to demand - take heart... some of us can help make a difference...
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