If you caught the first season of Fox's hit drama, Empire, you know that passing the torch of a family business can be a messy business... 

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http://www.forbes.com/sites/nextavenue/2015/04/27/7-empire-lessons-on-family-business-succession/?ss=family-business

The Bravermans take being a family business to a whole new level. It's one of the reasons why they've experienced success and longevity.

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http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/247246?ctp=BizDev&src=Syndication&msc=Feedly

MAIN BARRIERS TO GROWTH IN A BUSINESS

There are a lot of barriers when it comes to growing your own business. Micro businesses find that funding is their main obstacle is funding, Small Businesses have trouble with national regulation and Medium sized enterprises face the impact of EU Legislation. There has been a study completed over 300 successful owner-managed firms over a 10-year period they found that there were quite a few common Barriers to Growth:

1. The Planning vacuum - owner-managed firms with business plans performed better than those without.

2. Muddled marketing - the most successful growth businesses had a superior product/service, a superior reputation and a better understanding of customer needs

They achieved growth through focus & concentration rather than diffusion of effort.

3. Mismanaged change - fail to recognise the different phases of growth through which the firm passes and to manage that transition. 

Each phase of growth calls for a different approach to managing the business but most founders tend to try to run the business in much the same way as it gets bigger.

4. Meddling and mis-spent time - most owner-managers spend only 10% of their time on planning the future competitive strategy of the business and improving its performance.

They prefer to focus on the day-to-day operation of the business, checking and overseeing the work they are paying others to do.

5. The wrong objectives: - many have none.  Of those that do, they have the wrong objectives - commonly concentrating on sales or turnover growth.  Less than a third of businesses set their objectives in terms of profits and margins.

6. No financial strategy - many simply use bank loans and are unaware of other sources of funding. Also a lack of budgeting and control.

7. The motivation of the founder - often the founder does not want to grow the business.

Firms need to overcome these in order to grow and succeed in their business.

Source:  Barrow (2001), Study by Institute of Chartered accountants in England & Wales (1996)

 There are four main  types of owner-manager

1. The protectionist - the owner-manager wants to maintain the business at its current size, thus protecting his investment.
2. The business-oriented - the owner-manager wants to both grow and control the business in order to protect his investment.
3. The dynast -  the owner-manager wants to grow the business in order to protect his investment and pass it on to the next generation.
4. The family business - the owner-manager wants to keep the business at its current size and pass it on to the next generation.

Founders are unable to adapt to the needs of the growing firm.  They cannot and will not break old habits and learn new skills.

• As firms grow they become more complex and this complexity has to be managed.
• Founder experiences problems - he cannot make all the decisions and he believes that only he can make the right decisions.
• The founder is reluctant to lose control of the business, wanting to “do it all himself rather than manage others, so the growth potential of the firm is strictly limited by his personal energy and capacity”.
• Reluctant to bring in senior level executives and give them power.
• Entrepreneurship is a team effort - most studies focus on entrepreneurs as individuals when in reality, they are often part of a team.
• Problem of succession - especially in family firms - one of the greatest challenges facing the entrepreneur.

Appears easy but is not and is often marked by

• Increased levels of inter-personal conflict
• Attention to short-term profits rather than long-term goals
• Management procedures emphasising the short-term
• No defined process for integrating other family members
• Difficulty in valuing diverse contributions

Also the founder frequently does not wish to relinquish his hold over the business and may view with hostility any attempt by the family to remove him. The family may not want to confront the issue and so defer any action until it is unavoidable, by which time the business often has big problems.

• Recommended to start planning for succession 5-20 years beforehand.
• Often the founder is looking for a clone of himself but it is important that the successor is appropriate for both the culture that is being created and the stage of its development.
• The founder and successor have to be compatible.
• The heir must respect the founder’s attachment to the venture and be sensitive to his feelings of ownership, while at the same time being able to initiate change.
• The founder has to convert from being a leader to being a mentor or coach and from being a doer to being an adviser.
• The founder may not be the right person to choose a successor - he may establish a board of advisers, composed of people outside the firm, with no personal self-interest in the appointment.

Source: Birley (2000)

This is an interesting read from December last year that is still very relevant for todays' family owned firms.

Irish family businesses are among the least prepared to take advantage of commercial opportunities presented by an increasingly digitalised business environment.

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http://www.irishexaminer.com/business/family-firms-fail-to-exploit-digital-potential-301593.html

The Government has denied that Dublin grabs the biggest share of the huge amounts of foreign direct investment flowing into Ireland at the expense of the rest of the country.

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http://www.irishexaminer.com/business/smallbusiness/small-fast-growing-firms-to-create-jobs-says-bruton-337188.html

The term “Intrapreneur” might not be as well known as entrepreneur yet but this phenomenon is quickly gaining ground and shaping the way we think of innovation.

For Example: Xerox company set up XTV for the purpose of investing in the promising technologies of the employees. The $30m fund has supported 12 start ups so far, only 2 which have failed.
XTV is ran as a venture capital firm providing seed capital and finding investors where necessary. one of the firms is Quad Mark which was created by Dennis Stemmle who is an employee there for 25 years. (http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/3413.html)

Click here to read more.

http://businessfamilies.org/read/2015/05/28/intrapreneurship-what-it-is-and-why-its-important/

Marketing has come a long way in the four-and-a-half decades since the first email was delivered.

Advances like social media and search engine marketing have left businesses with no shortage of channels to leverage in order to reach their target demographic.

Why then, in this era of real-time socially driven marketing, do businesses continue to feature email as a staple of their marketing strategy?

Click here for more information:

http://mashable.com/2015/04/30/small-business-email-marketing/

With World Environment Day just around the corner, we take a look at the importance of ensuring your enterprising family considers the environment in its decisions

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http://businessfamilies.org/read/2015/06/04/making-your-enterprising-family-environmentally-friendly/

The purpose of business is to sell products or services to paying customers at profit. For a business to be sustainable over time, account has to be taken of three huge forces

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http://www.independent.ie/business/small-business/advice-centre/companies-dont-have-bright-ideas-the-people-who-work-for-them-do-31283387.html