New Year resolutions are typically associated with personal development and achievement. Albeit we typically and stoically look into losing weight, cutting down on alcohol or cigarettes, increasing our level of fitness or pinning our goals to buckets lists and targets.
As all parents can attest the soft and hard skills of running a business and a household are similar and yet so far apart. Merging both whereby your children and family members move to take on the additional of being your nearest and dearest to becoming your employees, eventually your colleagues and in the end, the boss is a transition on many levels for all the family members that requires quite a separation of powers and mentalities.
There comes a time in our life when for many people they hope to plan for a family and dream and work towards having children and raising them. We hope to guide and steer our children in the challenges of life and all that society requires to raise healthy, balanced adults.
An estimated 80 percent of the local business world is made up of family businesses – making them a very important part of the island’s economy and success story. Here Jo Caruana takes a look at the unique challenges – and opportunities – posed by this very particular business demographic.
Succession planning is smart business planning. It allows you to proactively develop people, rather than simply name them as replacements. Succession planning is about making sure your business can continue to grow and move forward.
If one looks at the history and economy of Malta, one will find it has been a very family oriented society with family businesses being part of the economy in an important way. Mostly with property but also changing according to the times the way the economy developed.
Financial planning is a process, not a product. It is the long-term method of wisely managing your finances so you can achieve your goals and dreams, while at the same time negotiating the financial barriers that inevitably arise in every stage of life of a family business.
Regardless of how small or large the size of a family business, succession planning for family enterprises presents a unique set of challenges. Not only can it be a complicated, emotionally-taxing process, but it also carries the potential to detrimentally affect family relationships, which can strain the business itself—often to the breaking point.
Phone calls. Emails. Text messages. Conference calls. Meetings. Video conferences. We are in constant communication, and yet so often we fail to effectively communicate. the proximity especially because of family members.
If a family business is intent on surviving with growth and stability and intends to pass the business to future generations it requires the ability to develop a defined strategy coupled with the flexibility to deal with emerging issues that will arise in this ever-changing and dynamic environment.