Ramon Agenjo: “The major challenges of family businesses are to possess a good team, resources and to continue to learn”
Ramon Agenjo, Board Member and Secretary of S.A. DAMM, has participated in a business round table entitled “The family business: managing with values” in which he identified the major challenges for the future of the family businesses. The event took place at the Annual Meeting of the Catalan Association of Family Businesses (ASCEF) on November 26.
“Continuity, closeness and links with the territory are some of the values that distinguish family businesses,” Mr Agenjo explained at the round table. He also acknowledged that “the pressure is also different“. “You always have the pressure to do better than your father or grandfather, to make your own contribution to the company. These improvements can take place in different aspects; they do not have to involve increasing turnover, but perhaps in internationalisation or innovation.”
Nonetheless, Mr Agenjo said that “the values of the company cannot be interfered with“. For this reason, he sees it as important to spread the company’s culture to all the employees, and even more so in its internationalisation processes.
“What is also important in a family business is discipline: we know that we are a team and everyone has their tasks; it’s not a good thing for the company to periodically modify the functions of the family members,” said Mr Agenjo, who highlighted the “importance” of being transparent with the whole family and explaining how the company is doing at all times, as well as giving one’s own perspective. “Good decisions for the company are also good for the family,” he added.
With regard to the three major challenges for the future facing family businesses, Agenjo described them as “to possess a good team, to possess resources and to learn a lot from others, both in terms of mistakes made and what has been done well.”
Together with Mr Agenjo, the business round table at the ASCEF Annual Meeting comprised Antonio Gallardo, the Honorary Vice-President of Almirall and Honorary President of ASCEF, and Pablo Lara, General Manager of the Education Area and Board Member of Grupo Planeta.