by Jesus Barrena 
If a challenge has the family business this is the challenge of generational change
The generational change
30% of family businesses are consolidated by changing managers between one generation and the next.
It is said that the grandfather founded the company, the children use it and the grandchildren destroy it, something like this is the idea that follows the stories of family businesses.
But the reality is that, according to data from the Family Business Institute, states that more than 30% of companies are consolidated with the second generation. According to experts, the most likely time for a business to fail is at its inception, its first years of life, much more than in the transfer of a generation of entrepreneurs founders to the continuing children.
The family factor is vital for the success of many companies, due to the commitment of its members to its goals.
In Spain about 98% of the companies are family-owned, and these account for about 60% of GDP in the private sector, according to data from the Family Business Institute.
According to the same origin of the data, the Institute itself, the number of family businesses that registered losses in 2020 multiplied by three compared to the previous year, 2019; having gone from 4% to 12%.
57% saw their turnover drop, but two out of three managed to hang on and maintain or increase their workforce.
What is the problem of generational change
Economic setbacks are not always the biggest problems that a family business has to face, it is the generational change that is the moment of greatest risk for the life of the company.
El founder of the family business he "resists" leaving the controls of the company, and the generation that follows him is willing to do it and take it his way. Hence the importance of the existence of a family business protocol.
There is no single way to put into practice the change in the management of the company, since each company is a world.
It may be advisable that the generation that takes the reins after the founder and the successive ones, first have adequate training and experience in the sector but outside their own family business. The formula would be to train, gain experience and take over the reins of the family business again.
Foreign aid for the generational transition
The predefined formulas, in this transaction, to take over do not exist, but one of the ways to do it is to have external and objective support that accompanies the members of the family in this transition to the next generation.
There are professional law firms that are specialists in the generational transition in the family business. This will help the company to implement an action protocol aimed at company survival for the following generations.
Each family member, even having in common the objective that the company endures over time, has its particular point of view and it is about reaching an agreement to bring to fruition the resolution of the change in the management of the family business that pleases everyone for most of its purposes.
In order to learn more and more about how to improve the day-to-day activities of family businesses in all aspects, there is the Chair of the Boschaymerich Family Business that requires a multidisciplinary analysis, susceptible to diverse and complementary research and teaching approaches, oriented to the creation of companies, the dissemination of the culture of entrepreneurship, or the optimal organization of family corporate governance structures of companies. This Bosch i Aymerich Chair is integrated into the Faculty of Law, with a legal focus; and at the same time with dogmatic autonomy of the Legal Sciences.
