Awareness is growing among family businesses on the challenges and requirements, even among industries and businesses in the smaller cities and towns, according to Kavil Ramachandran, Executive Director of Thomas Schmidheiny Centre for Family Enterprise, Indian School of Business.
He was in the city on Saturday to address the members of Indian Texpreneurs Federation on family businesses. He spoke to The Hindu on changes in family businesses in the country, especially those in the manufacturing sector.
There is a challenge of having experts on family businesses. Many industries need hand-holding for short or mid-term. It is a factor that needs to be addressed. Awareness on the need for guidance is growing even in smaller cities and towns and new organisations are coming up to provide the required support. But more are needed, he said.
The Indian School of Business did a study two years ago on new venture creations.
At the national level, more than half of them are family owned.
There is greater realisation among families that competition is significant and that they need the right resource base. And the interest is growing among these to build competitiveness and capabilities.
The next generation who is joining the business is starting new ventures and expanding, he said. The ability of these businesses to scale up depends on the nature of the industry and the capacity to bring capital and technology.
The Ambani group, for instance, thinks of the ability to scale in any venture.
There are even region-specific eateries that have expanded to different parts of the country. Across sectors, they use the IT platform and several options to expand.
Across countries there are family businesses. There is a lot of similarity between Indian and German family businesses. There are global trends in India too, he said.
