Gauri Chhabra
March 10 and 11, 2018 gave aspiring and budding entrepreneurs an opportunity to connect and collaborate as the best and brightest minds came together and brainstormed on on how to fuel their business growth. The conference at IIT Mumbai brought together the best breed of entrepreneurs, innovators, venture capitalists, business model creators, consultants, policy-makers, academicians, and business practitioners to present and discuss innovation and success under the aegis of entrepreneurship for Small and Medium Businesses.
Over the past decade or so, in the dilemma between joining family owned businesses and higher studies, the scales have been tipping towards entrepreneurship and joining family owned businesses.
Let us explore the genesis and the reason why:
The Genesis
Today, family-owned businesses account for two-thirds of the world’s businesses and generate most of the world’s economic output, employment and wealth. In many regions of the world, family companies dominate the economy. “Family-controlled firms now make up 19% of the companies in the Fortune Global 500,” states The Economist. In India alone, 67% businesses are family run. McKinsey forecasts, that by 2025,there will be more than 15,000 companies worldwide with at least $1 billion in annual revenues, of which 37% will be emerging-market family firms.
The need
There is a need for Family Business Management Programs whether you are in a successful family business or you are into a business facing challenges and trying to bring about a changeover.
Successful family business
Successful family businesses are successful because families see important changes in their industry and adapt by diversifying into new activities that can grow. Simply put, successful families are entrepreneurial. Also,families succeed because they invest in productive activities, emphasize growing assets, and consume relatively little of their wealth. These families maintain a culture that encourages family members to create things of lasting value. It’s not surprising that these families encourage entrepreneurs. Furthermore,successful families remain reasonably united, keeping supportive members loyal to one another and to the family’s mission. Over generations, as families become more diverse, it is likely that only a few relatives per generation will directly work in the business. Outside-the-business members might still support family philanthropic efforts or social activities, and sometimes that level of involvement is enough to maintain family unity. But investing in family entrepreneurs can also keep talented members contributing to the broader family’s wealth and mission.Investing in family entrepreneurs has to be done objectively based on the feasibility of their business plans, and also fairly within the family. Even if some entrepreneurial projects don’t succeed, these investments will help you spot talent to keep your business growing. And you are sending an important message: this family is committed to creating value.
Family businesses facing challenges
While family businesses on average are stronger performers than other types of enterprise, they face distinct challenges that need to be managed. This constraint often kills the family business.
This creates the need for a course of study in Family Business Management that helps students understand how to capitalize on the strengths, navigate the challenges, and guard against the weaknesses of the companies and the families that own them.
How is Family Business Management program different from an MBA in Entrepreneurship?
Both Family Business Management and an MBA in Entrepreneurship prepare you for setting up and gearing your own business. However, there is a subtle difference. Unlike MBA in Entrepreneurship which prepares students for a setting up a business, the Family Business Management programme is targeted at family business owners looking to sustain, scale and grow their businesses. The content and pedagogy includes concepts of entrepreneurship, business sustainability, market trends which thereby lead to portfolio expansion and business growth. The program would help you evaluate the state of your family businesses and gear you towards accelerating your business to the next level.
Colleges/Institutes for Entrepreneurial Management
Xavier School of Management (XLRI), Jamshedpur, offering a full-time six-month Post Graduate Programme for Certificate in Entrepreneurship Management (PGPCEM).
Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, Gandhinagar,offering a two-year, full-time, residential Post Graduate Diploma in Management-Business Entrepreneurship (PGDM-BE).
SP Jain Institute of Management and Research – Mumbai,Start Your Business Certification Program (SYB), Grow Your Business Certification Program (GYB), The Entrepreneurial Manager (TEM).
Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies,Mumbai,M.B.A in Social Entrepreneurship
Xavier Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship – Bangalore, offering one year Entrepreneurial Development Programme (EDP)
Nirma Institute of Management,Ahmedabad,offering regular two-year MBA specialising in Family Business & Entrepreneurship.
Amity Business School ,Noida, offering two year M.B.A in Entrepreneurship
IIM , Bangalore, specialization in Entrepreneurs & Family Businesses.
IIM Udaipur, Management Development Program for Women Entrepreneurs.
National Institute for Entrepreneurship & Small Business Development (NIESBUD), Delhi
The NIESBUD is an apex institute in the area of entrepreneurship and small business development under the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, Government of India. It oversees the activities of various institutions and agencies engaged in entrepreneurship development, particularly in the area of small industry and small business. It also provides numerous training and development courses for budding entrepreneurs and small businesses.
Making the right choice
In the world of family business, the entrepreneurs we celebrate are usually founders of companies. If you wish to be a founder of a company, start your new venture and learn how to navigate, go in for a pure MBA in Entrepreneurship. However, if you wish to join your family business and are supposed to take care of and grow the founder’s creation, you are not expected to be entrepreneurs but to understand and carry forward the vision of the founder,an MBA in Entrepreneurship would be more helpful.
Therefore, it is imperative that you make the right and informed choice…
Are these mutually exclusive?
If this makes you think that family business management programs are incompatible to entrepreneurship because they are for students who are in family businesses that are usually tradition-bound, multi- generational, let me tell you, we need to blur the lines here. The family businesses need to be more entrepreneurial. They need to pass on the entrepreneurial mindset and capabilities to create new streams of wealth across many generations- not just pass the business on from one generation to the next. We need to come up with the concept of ‘family entrepreneurship’. When a leadership transition occurs in a family business, the new generation of leadership should be careful to maintain and build on the networks and knowledge of the former leaders, while expanding their own networks. This will insure that the business can continue to be entrepreneurial into the future.
And when they do, the distinction between Entrepreneurship and Family Business Management studies would begin to blur…
Follow our WhatsApp channel
