FOBO stands for Front Office and Back Office. It is a concept used in business to differentiate between the customer-facing activities of a company (front office) and the behind-the-scenes operations (back office). The front office refers to the part of the organization that interacts directly with customers or clients, such as sales, marketing, and customer service. The back office, on the other hand, is made up of the functions that support the front office, such as human resources, accounting, and IT.
In the context of succession planning, the FOBO concept can be used to identify critical roles and individuals within an organization that are customer-facing or client-facing (front office) and those that are responsible for supporting the front office (back office). By understanding the roles and responsibilities of both the front and back office, organizations can develop a more sustainable succession plan that ensures continuity in both the customer-facing and support functions of the organization.
During the implementation of a sustainable strategy, IRBM has endeavored to identify the key characteristics and personal traits required in future leaders. To achieve this objective, the organization has leveraged the Potential Forge profiling methodology as a reference for succession planning. During the qualitative data collection phase, IRBM has meticulously mapped the personality traits of the future leaders against 20 distinctive traits of the Potential Forge profiling framework. The purpose of this mapping exercise was to ascertain the cognitive and psychometric abilities of potential future leaders, and thereby identify individuals who possess the requisite traits to lead the organization towards a sustainable future.