Family Business Advisory

Away from the meta-national decision centers, family businesses in emerging and fringe economies need to continuously adapt their business models to the growing presence of globalization. Sometimes, this can mean they have less time or lack the necessary focus to optimize vital internal processes, such as top-level succession planning. In what follows, Egon Zehnder International consultants working on three different continents – in Argentina, Indonesia and Portugal – argue that in these special circumstances there are several aspects that must be observed if succession planning is to match up to best practices and meet with success.

Many family businesses will be facing the issue of succession over the next few years, but very few of them are prepared for the challenge. Yet, particularly for family businesses, the handover from one generation to the next is crucial to the company’s very survival. In this article, the authors describe how the generation shift can be managed with long-term planning, objectivity, and the use of professional processes.