Family Business 성장엔진

Family Business는 중동의 성장 엔진(?)

아랍국가의 비 석유부분 (Non-oil)  GDP의 85%이상이 Family Business로 상당 부문 정지 경제적으로 영향력을 발휘.

통상적으로 Family Business라고 하면 폐쇄적이고, 정보를 공유하지 않아 부정적인 시각으로 접근했었는데, 의외로 중동의 Family Business는 아랍권역의 성장엔진으로 바람직한 비지니스모델이자 사회적으로도 젊은층의 실업률과 같이 사회적으로 대두되는 이슈들을 능동적으로 참여하여 개선해나가는 존재로 인식.

소유와 경영이 분리되어야 한다는 것만이 정답이라고 생각하고 Family Business는 세습이라는 부정적인 면이 많이 부각된 것이 사실인데, 중동은 그렇지 않은듯. (분명 Corporate governance 가 이슈 일듯)

아무래도, 중동지역은 전통적으로 가문, family가 주가 되는 사회라 그런지도 모르겠다. 사우디 왕자 family, UAE의 통치자도 모두 family 이듯이, 국가를 이끌어 나가는 주도 세력도 모두 가족, 친인척인데, Business를 이끌어 나가는 주도 세력도 family가 아니면 이상할 듯....같은 맥락에서 보면 될듯. 그리고 워낙 부유한 family들은 기본적으로 유동성이 풍부하기 때문에 외부 funding을 통한 financing의 needs가 없는 것도 하나의 원인이 될 것 같다. 즉, 귀찮게 IPO 통해서 기업 공개하여 회사의 재무상황에 대해 감내놓고 배내놓고 하기 싫은 것도 있는 것 같다. 

 

Family businesses are engine for growth

Last updated: Thursday, May 30, 2013 12:30 AM

JEDDAH — Family businesses make up over 85% of the whole Arab World’s non-oil GDP, and have significant influence and sway, both societally and politically as a result of their extensive networks and relationships. Badr Jafar, Managing Director of the Crescent Group and CEO of Crescent Enterprises, a UAE-based conglomerate operating across multiple core sectors of the global economy, addressed the World Economic Forum in Dead Sea in Jordan on the key role that Arab family-owned businesses can play in global economic development.

Jafar explained that as a result of this influence, “Family businesses across the Gulf region and the rest of the Arab World have a major opportunity to positively engage in dealing with the socio-economic challenges that exist in our region, including the massive youth unemployment, skills deficit, and inadequate ecosystem for promoting entrepreneurship.”

“However without actions to institutionalize and professionalize their governance structures, family businesses face large risks of major destruction of value,” Jafar added.

Almost three-quarters of the region’s family businesses are owned and managed by the second generation, with only 5% in the hands of a fourth generation or beyond. Global statistics show that less than 10% of family businesses globally continue to create value beyond the third generation mainly due to this value being destroyed as a result of inadequate succession planning, and so with over $1 trillion of assets set to be handed over to the next generation in the next five to ten years, according to a recent report by the IMF, without the right corporate governance frameworks in place there is significant scope for conflict and complications which will in-turn reverberate across all sectors of Arab societies.

A recent PWC survey revealed that only 42% of family businesses have a shareholders’ agreement in place, and more than three quarters currently have no procedures in place to deal with conflict.

Jafar explained that even though many similar qualities are shared by family businesses across the world, it is important to view the family business in its cultural and economic context to understand its achievements and identify its needs.

According to Jafar, Arab family businesses take great care in transmitting their values not only to the next family generations but also to their stakeholders. These traditions are grounded in a culture and value system that focuses on the longer term, an approach to commerce that is set in a wider context of sustainable human endeavor.

Jafar added “The West’s studied separation of management and ownership, and its often frenzied focus on quarterly results, does not fit immediately and comfortably into our culture. Arab family businesses are strongly embedded in their communities and consider themselves responsible not only for their own welfare but also for that of the people around them. The family’s measure of commercial success lies more in retaining a strong family business culture and providing ongoing security for the family than it does in simply making profits. We as family businesses must go after success, not profits.”

According to Jafar, family-owned businesses must be seen not only in terms of assets but as a combination of property and values. That is, family businesses have implications that involve more than merely serving a financial purpose; they are a means of sharing certain values and providing a service to the community in which it is integrated.

This is why, at a time when executives, investors and even public opinion bemoan the lack of values in the corporate world, family-owned businesses are shaping up to be the role models to watch.

According to the recent PWC survey, Arab Family businesses are thriving, with over 83% of surveyed businesses reporting a growth in sales over the past year as compared with 65% globally. “With success comes deep responsibility and we as family business in the region must actively seek to play an important role in addressing some of the challenges that our great region of the world faces,” Jafar added.

The role of women was emphasized as being of paramount importance to the health of the region and its economic development. According to cited reports, there is a direct correlation between a societies’ gender diversity and its financial success.

Jafar highlighted, “There is a bad mismatch in the Arab World today, where the highest rate of education is among our women, but women also suffer from the lowest rate of employment. Family businesses have the best opportunity to engage more women in leadership and management positions in the companies, which in turn will have a direct positive impact on the health of their economies.”

Jafar also stated: “The growth and development of the Arab family business within the last two decades has shown that the journey from family to broad equity-based ownership is not the only path on which a successful company can travel. In addition, the combination of ownership and management which family businesses offer can and, indeed, should provide the basis for a new way of economic thinking. Adapting the previously dominant profit maximization motive to allow for more long term thinking regarding people and resources is perhaps more in the gift of a family business than its fully quoted counterparts”.

Quoated from Saudi Gazzette