A family-owned business is an organization where majority ownership and control is entrusted to more than one family member. Interestingly; family-owned businesses are probably the oldest business organizations globally. While many people assume that running a successful business with members of the same family is a difficult undertaking; it is easy to grow a successful family business when all members are fully committed to the same goals and visions. Perfect examples of some of the most successful family-owned businesses in the world include; Sun Pharmaceutical, CK Hutchison Holdings, Foxconn, McKesson, Nike, Kinder Morgan, Volkswagen, Samsung Electronics, Oracle, Facebook, Wal-Mart, and Novartis among others. What do these companies have in common?
Well, here are 3 secrets of successful family businesses;
Unity
Realistically, it is impossible for any family to run any family-owned business without unity. Every entrepreneur family knows and understands the essence of family unity in growing family-owned business empires. All families endure tough times that can only be overcome through unity. All family members have an obligation to do whatever it takes to respect each other to make it easy for their unified family to overcome all the challenges that life throws their way. Without unity, there can never be any family-owned business. A unified family remains in solidarity in difficult times, makes sound business decisions together, communicates with each other directly, meet regularly, build practical conflict-resolution skills and respects each other’s opinions at all times. Under such circumstances, it is straightforward to start and grow a successful family business.
Expertise
Family businesses can only be regarded as successful when the right people are filling the right positions within the organization. Every business oriented family understands the importance of having the right expertise in all the significant sections including; sales, marketing, finance, technology, HR, and operations among others. Without the right expertise, it becomes difficult to get any business off the ground. In fact, the level of expertise changes with the growth of any family business. Sometimes, family members need to agree on whether to hire outside expertise at an affordable price to inject professionalism, objectivity, new ideas and perspectives in their business as a survival tactic. This is mainly done when there’s a need to balance the passion and innovativeness of the family business through proven expertise that may be lacking within the family.
Communication
Nothing good can come out of anything without excellent communication as far as family businesses are concerned. Most family-owned businesses experience premature closures due to ambiguity and poor collaboration. Luckily; establishing a flawless communication process where family members can communicate directly with each other creates an excellent economic environment for their business to thrive on. With unambiguous communication, there will be crystal clear organizational objectives, visions or goals to achieve. Also, excellent communication will definitely lead to precise clarity, better collaboration, better decision making, improved productivity, respect, less-conflicts, and better relationships.
Conclusion
Successful families know that building successful family-owned businesses is more than just money. It takes a unified vision, better communication and proven expertise among other things to maintain highly successful family businesses.
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