Only 15% of Indian family businesses have succession plan: Survey

While three-quarters of Indian family businesses have grown in the past one year, barely 15 per cent of them have a robust succession plan, according to a survey report released on Monday.

The study -- 2016 India Family Business Survey Report -- released by PricewaterhouseCoopers, showed that 84 per cent of Indian family businesses expect to grow either steadily or quickly and aggressively over the next five years.

"Of those looking at an annual growth of over 10 per cent over the next five years, about 96 per cent said that the growth of core business in existing markets would enable them to reach their targets," the report said.

According to the survey, over half of the family businesses surveyed said they were looking to expand into new sectors or new countries and would consider inorganic growth.

"Indian family businesses are very optimistic about their future, which is clearly demonstrated by the heightened entrepreneurial activity being witnessed in the country.

"Strategic planning in both dimensions of a family business -- the family and the business -- will go a long way in enabling family business leaders to achieve their goals," said Praveen Bhambani, Partner and Leader, Private and Entrepreneurial Business, PwC India.

The consulting firm spoke to 2,802 family business leaders across 50 countries and with 102 family business leaders in India.

The report said that the participants in the survey felt that the key challenges their business would face in the next five years were the need to innovate, keeping pace with the digital and technological development, attracting and retaining talent, competition, need to professionalise the business and regulatory compliances.

It pointed out that the priorities of family businesses for the next five years were "not quite in line" with the challenges anticipated.

Innovation, which is considered the biggest challenge, comes fourth in business priorities -- maybe because the need to innovate is linked with revenue growth at the enterprise level.

Digital comes second, yet only 22 per cent of the family businesses feel their business is vulnerable to digitisation, the report added.

--IANS

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