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Welcome to the third Ezine from FBS

We hope you enjoy the third ezine from FBS. In this edition, we explain the importance of policies and succession in family businesses and give you an update on what the FBS team have been up to over the past month.

We also highlight an upcoming event centered around family enterprises, featuring William Grant & Sons Ltd, in association with the Scottish Family Business Association.

Please visit our website here which includes more information on our services.

If there is anything we can help you with, you are welcome to contact us here or call us on 0141 222 2820. 

Very best regards,
The FBS Team

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How to work with your family and still enjoy Sunday dinner

One of the advantages of having your own business is the opportunity to work with your nearest and dearest.  On the plus side it is difficult for any other type of business to match the commitment and flexibility, in pay and other conditions, that can result from employing family.  However, decisions about employing and remunerating your relatives can easily become stressful, to the extent that family relationships are harmed. 

Since the possibility of family joining the business is hardly unpredictable, if you would like to work with your family and still enjoy family get-togethers, like Sunday dinner, you need a policy that sets everyone’s expectations about how these decisions will be taken. 

Purpose of the policy
The policy should begin with a clear statement of its key aims and objectives.  It could be to encourage family members to join the business so that the advantages and enjoyment of working with your relatives are secured.  It might state that every family member is entitled to a job in the business at some level, or that employment will only be offered to family members with skills and experience that satisfy the current needs of the business. 

Who is affected by the policy?
Will the policy apply only to your nuclear family (children and grandchildren) or will it cover a wider family group including nieces and nephews and cousins.   A key decision is whether or not spouses and partners will be covered by the policy.

What types of jobs are available?
It is helpful to distinguish between managerial positions, non-managerial full-time positions and part-time/casual/summer work because access to these types of jobs will usually be managed in a different way.

Read the full article here.

Family Enterprise Lecture Series: Wm Grant & Sons Ltd

The Scottish Family Business Association, in association with Strathclyde Business School, is pleased to present the second in the series of the inaugural Family Enterprise lectures, taking place on Wednesday 18th September 2013.

BILL GORDON of WILLIAM GRANT & SONS LTD

Founded in 1886 by William Grant and still controlled by the fifth generation of his family, the distiller has an enviable record of innovation. It claims to have been the first to market single malt as a premium product in the early 1960s. Forty years ago Grants were also the first to open a visitor centre; the Glenfiddich visitor centre alone attracts 75,000 people a year and as part of the "Whisky Trail" is a mainstay of Scottish tourism.

Bill will discuss the work to be done with the next generation to ensure they are ready to continue the legacy of this iconic Scottish business, and how the family and business governance must adapt to the increasing complexity of another generation of the family entering ownership and possibly employment in the business.

Although William Grant & Sons is a major business by any standards the lessons to be learned from Bill's talk will be directly relevant to all families who own a business and have to consider the likely issues arising when the next generation start to come on board.  

Date: Wednesday 18th September 2013
Registration: 2.45pm with the lecture delivered from 3.15pm
Location: 
McCance Lecture Theatre 1, 

McCance Building, 
16 Richmond Street, Glasgow G1 1XQ

To register for this presentation, please email the corporate events team here or call 0141 548 2245.

The Succession Conspiracy

The grit and determination that is so often characteristic of family business founders can bring great success, but can also be the undoing of the business when the founder won’t let go. There are many reasons why a founder may not want to let go - “I’m immortal”, “nobody can run this business as well as I can”, fear of an uncertain future and so on.

For the next generation, from where they are standing, the inability of the founder to let go can be hugely frustrating and demotivating.    

But what does it look like from where the founder is standing? Leaving aside feelings of immortality and “nobody can run this business as well as I can” the founder is faced with a veritable pandora’s box of complex issues, as illustrated in the diagram below, that he will have to face if he is to let go and pass the business onto the next generation.

Letting go, and succession planning, requires many things to be worked on at once, and often a solution to one issue will raise many more questions in relation to another issue. Succession is not just about retirement planning, or wills, or tax.

Given the complexity, lifting the lid on this can be scary, so it should come as no surprise that many founders are reluctant to let go. Many will just put the lid back on and leave well alone! 

Succession in a family business involves change – major change – so the success of any transition depends very much on the willingness and ability of the family business to change.

Read the full article here

About FBS

FBS was established in 1996 by two of the world’s leading practitioners in the field of family business consulting.

FBS has developed a consulting service that is unique to FBS and that enables FBS to provide help to families in a consistent and cost effective way. It is tried and tested, and more importantly, provides a safe framework within which families can discuss and resolve the issues they face.

This month -

George Stevenson has been invited to speak at Business Quarterly (BQ) discussion forum on Family Business in Edinburgh 4th September.  He will also speaking at the Law Society conference on Family business at Dunblane Hydro on 22nd October.

Susan Hoyle and the rest of the FBS team attended the inaugural Family Enterprise Lecture in at Strathclyde University, in association with The Scottish Family Business association. The speaker was Maitland Mackie of Mackies Ice Cream fame.

Liam Entwistle was featured was featured in a popular Radio Scotland Radio Show talking about the problem of discrimination in owner managed businesses.

Meet the FBS team here

Get in Touch Today

Contact FBS here or call us on 0141 222 2820 to arrange a meeting to discuss your requirements.