You measure this by determining, per business function, whether it would keep running without you, and scoring that on a number of fixed points: client contact, knowledge, decisions, signatures. Together these points form an owner-dependency index, which shows where the organisation leans on you and where it does not.
Owner dependency is not a feeling, it is a sum of concrete matters. Who maintains the five largest client relationships? Who knows the pricing agreements that are not on paper anywhere? Who makes the investment decisions above a certain amount? Who has to sign at the bank, with suppliers, on new contracts? At a company of 50 to 300 employees, the answer is often spread out: the sales team has its own client contact, but the owner still calls the three largest accounts personally. The index places these points side by side and gives a score per component, instead of one overall impression.
Owner dependency does not affect value equally hard everywhere. At a manufacturing company with a fixed client base and an operations manager who runs the floor, the dependency is mainly visible in supplier relationships and bank contact. At a service provider where the owner is the key advisor for the largest clients, the risk lies precisely in the commercial part. That is exactly why what does succession readiness mean for the price gives a different answer per situation: the sensitivity of the range depends on which driver weighs heaviest, and that differs per company and per sector.
A high owner dependency carries through into the indicative range that comes out of the scan, not as a fixed amount but as sensitivity: if client relationships, knowledge and signing authority largely lie with one person, the range is wider and the lower end lower, because a buyer assesses more risk. Conversely, the more of these points already lie with management or systems, the narrower that range turns out. This is explicitly not a valuation and not an appraisal, it is an indication of where the sensitivity lies and how large it is per driver.
A technical service provider of about 120 employees had the eight drivers assessed. On six drivers the company scored reasonably: recurring revenue, a diverse client base, a second management layer. On two drivers – the maintenance of the ten largest client relationships and the technical knowledge about custom solutions – everything turned out to lie with the owner. Those two points pulled the owner-dependency index up considerably and pulled the range apart considerably. That only became concretely visible when the eight drivers were scored separately instead of in one general judgement about 'dependency on the founder'.
The test [how buyer-ready are you](/) consists of eight questions and gives an indication per driver, including for owner dependency, and is a first way to see where the scores stand out. Those who want to go further can also use the results to look at what still needs to be arranged before a buyer looks seriously, because in addition to succession readiness, which legal matters must be in order for a sale also play a role in how a company comes across.
Owner dependency and the quality of management information are, at their core, questions about who does which task and who could take it over. Which tasks are transferable to an employee and which to AI is mapped out by the work scan on ftetoai.com, as a follow-up step after the scan has shown exactly where the dependency lies.