What Makes The Current Times So Great For Family Businesses ?

A commonly cited statistic is that only 30% of family businesses make it through the second generation, 10-15% through the third, and 3-5% through the fourth.

Now for some perspective : How many businesses of any kind are still around after the equivalent of three or four generations? A study of 25,000 publicly traded companies from 1950 to 2009 found that, on average, they lasted around 15 years, or not even through one generation!  In this context, family businesses look pretty enduring,don’t they?

In the hyper competition of the Fourth Industrial Age, family businesses have innate strengths over others forms of ownership, especially public companies. In the Second and Third Industrial Age, businesses had access to vast opportunities, which meant that winning strategies revolved primarily around size. Public companies had a clear advantage while raising massive capital. But firms today are no longer looking at endless opportunities. Instead, they have to struggle for their very survival in an intensely competitive world of slower growth and more frequent economic crises. Read more of this post