|
 Print Friendly
 Email to Friend
|
|
8 Ideas To Strengthen Your Family-Owned Business
|
|
Article 1: Tackle The Issues
The strength and longevity of your family firm depends upon how well you navigate the unique challenges of running a family-owned business.
Along with the standard fare of issues, like marketing and customer service, family firms must also address challenges such as planning for succession, mediating family power struggles and grooming the next generation to take the helm.
How you and your family members successfully handle those challenges could determine the growth -- or decline -- of your family business.
Statistics show that many family businesses are on the right track:
- According to the George and Robin Raymond Family Business Institute, www.raymondinstitute.org, family businesses represent 64 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product.
- A 2003 nationwide study co-sponsored by the Raymond Family Business Institute and MassMutual Financial Group shows that family-owned businesses are experiencing robust growth.
- American family businesses report mean revenues of $36.5 million, up more than 50 percent since 1997, the survey reports.
- Family firms tend to keep employment levels stable and avoid downsizing.
- Twenty-five percent of family firms surveyed carry no debt other than trade payables.
“Make no mistake: Family business is big business, and as our survey results clearly demonstrate, it’s one of the brightest spots on the American economic horizon,” says Matthew E. Winter, executive vice president, Individual Insurance Group, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company. “Identifying the unique issues and challenges this market faces today is important to family businesses.”
If you want your family firm to thrive in the generations to come, devote attention today to such crucial issues as succession planning, generational training, market changes and business governance.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
