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n 2020, family-owned businesses spanning three generations are few and far between. In an article by William Chou in Deloitte’s new report, Private company issues and opportunities 2020: Family business edition, he cites statistics showing that fewer than 30 percent of family- and founder-owned businesses in the United States can claim that level of longevity.
Why don’t family-owned businesses endure? Chou writes that it’s not internal squabbling or lack of interested successors — it’s the lack of a commonly understood purpose. Defining purpose may seem easy but maintaining it from generation to generation can be harder than most people think.
Image: In a family-owned business, purpose goes beyond profits to encompass mission and role in the community as well as the reasons family members decided to go into business together in the first place. - DANIEL ALLAN
