Strengths and Weaknesses of Family Business: The Indian Context

The paper “Strengths and Weaknesses of Family Business: The Indian Context” was written and presented in CII, Family Business Meet at Jaipur. The paper examines the location and status of family businesses in the industrial context of India. Indian Family businesses shifted from trading and distribution to manufacturing. The shift demanded changes in leadership role, mindsets of people and the interfaces around leadership style. Indian family businesses are characterised by the following significant processes: • The entrepreneur is the hero idealised, glorified and respected by his people. • The employees are treated as family members and extended family. • The collective interest of the system and the group in upheld rather than the individual. • Competent and capable leadership manages the workforce through social structures and role processes. Similarly, there are weaknesses of the family businesses. These are unpreparedness for change, owner becomes larger than the organisation, decision-making is centralised, there are proxy sons in power position who erode structural authority and hierarchy, tolerance for mediocrity, tentativeness to formalise and professionalise and overall lack of strategic perspective. The paper then reflects on the future of Indian Family Businesses and New Paradigms of family businesses. The choice is to evoke in the collectivity the fire to deploy their potentials and collectively mobilize the talent for innovativeness, excellence and forging a new role for themselves. The choice is between a successful role model of an organization or to become heroes or villains individually. New giants may come but the resilience of the entrepreneurial spirit, the phoenix like quality of the families to rise from the ashes, and the core values can provide the family owned organizations discover the wherewithals to not only survive but build an institution which lasts for generations to come. Then, perhaps the family saga may begin. Once upon a time... and they created an empire... where people had dreams and nurtured and fostered them and make them happen that which everyone thought was impossible...