Author: Borja Igual

The Honorary Vice President of Almirall and Honorary President of the Catalan Association of Family Businesses (ASCEF), Antonio Gallardo, was one of three guests at the business round table entitled “The family business: managing with values“, held at the ASCEF Annual Meeting.

“I have always said that we are not a family business, but a business family. It is important for the family to remain together,” Mr Gallardo said. “If we never have to sell the company, the family’s money has to remain together and keep working in the same line and with the same vision,” the Honorary President of the ASCEF added.

“The values of a family business distinguish it from the rest since we have a different vision and approach and we think about the continuity of the company in the hands of our children and grandchildren.”

“It is important to have a vision that is shared with the whole family,” continued Mr Gallardo, who also underlined how important it is for the whole family to know what is being done in the company and to always take family difficulties into account as “not everything always gets resolved.”

Mr Gallardo highlighted the internationalisation of family businesses as the great challenge for the future, saying that those who emerge best from the current crisis “will be those who make around 80% of their total sales abroad.”

Pablo Lara, General Director of the Education Area and Member of the Board of Grupo Planeta, and Ramon Agenjo, the Director and Secretary S.A. DAMM, joined Mr Gallardo at the business round table at the ASCEF Annual Meeting.

Pablo Lara, General Manager of the Education Area and Member of the Board of Grupo Planeta, was one of three business people who participated in a round table entitled “The family business: managing with values“. The event was held at the Annual Meeting of the Catalan Association of Family Businesses (ASCEF) on November 26.

Mr Lara, who belongs to the third generation of the company’s family, said that values “lend personality to family businesses. They are something intangible that enables the family business to function and they earn trust because they provide a sign that we are thinking in the long term.” He added that a family business is “more intensely felt” due to the fact that “the reputation of our company is ours: our product is associated with us.”

“Young talent is what concerns me the most,” he continued, even though he added that “the family business has values that young people will not find in another company; we build an offer of value that makes us attractive to young talent.”

Looking forward, Mr Lara feels that the three major challenges facing family businesses in the future are “talent, moderation and governance.” In this regard, he underlined the importance of “thinking about what follows the crisis before reaching it; now is a good time to steal a march on some companies.”

Together with Mr Lara, the guests at the business round table at the ASCEF Annual Meeting were Antonio Gallardo, the Honorary Vice-President of Almirall and Honorary President of ASCEF, and Ramon Agenjo, the Board Member and Secretary of S.A. DAMM.

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.

The Catalan Association of Family Businesses (ASCEF) held its Annual Meeting on November 26 under the title “Family businesses: managing with values“. Due to the current pandemic, this year’s event took place in a hybrid format: in-person at Barcelona’s Hotel Clarís, in observance of the measures and recommendations on hygiene and health, as well as online.

Amadeu Jori, the ASCEF President, and Luis Herrero, Banco Santander’s Institutional Territorial Director in Catalonia, welcomed all those attending this Annual Meeting edition, which revolved around the values possessed by all family businesses that distinguish them from other organisations.

Moderated by Dr Juan Corona, Academic Advisor of the Family Business Institute and Professor of Applied Economics at Abat Oliba CEU University, the Annual Meeting featured a round table of businessmen who offered their views on the family business. These were Antonio Gallardo, Honorary Vice-President of Almirall and Honorary President of ASCEF; Pablo Lara, General Manager of the Education Department of Grupo Planeta; and Ramón Agenjo, Board Member and Secretary of S.A. DAMM. They highlighted that what lends a company personality are its values and this therefore makes a family business different from the rest.

As challenges for family businesses in the future, the trio highlighted the internationalisation of companies, possessing and attracting talent, and learning a lot from the others: where they have gone wrong and what they have done well.

The ASCEF Annual Meeting was sponsored by Banco Santander. Its Commercial Director of Companies in Catalonia, Sergi Farro, gave a talk entitled “Our support and Financial Solutions to the Covid Environment“. In this, he examined what has happened during the recent months of economic crisis, the key elements today for companies (internationalisation, digitisation, possessing liquidity, adaptability and speed in decision-making). He concluded by focusing on the unknown that is 2021, the current signs of optimism notwithstanding.

• The study, conducted by the STEP Project Global Consortium, enjoys the collaboration of over 40 universities from different parts of the world and the participation of over 1,800 family businesses from 33 countries from 5 geographical regions
• The Catalan Association of Family Businesses (ASCEF) sponsors 5 University Chairs in Family Business in Catalonia

More than 70% of the present leaders of family businesses admit to having no succession plan. The remainder believe that a formal succession plan increases the possibility of the manager reflecting on their plans for the future. Spanish family businesses are on a par internationally with regard to the existence of succession plans (28% in Spain, as in Europe and Latin America, compared to 30% globally).

Similarly, the study shows that Spanish family businesses address these processes with a strong leaning towards the structuring of family governance. This can lead to guidance and agreement on succession processes and to encourage family participation and involvement in future stages of the business project. However, these businesses are less well-equipped with regard to the structures and mechanisms of corporate governance (boards of directors, the existence of external directors etc.), which are also key to channelling the transition in the management.

These are some of the conclusions from the study on the way in which family businesses relate to succession, with special attention to different generational perspectives. It was conducted by researchers from the Chair in Family Business of the University of Valencia, the Chair in Family Business and Business Creation from the Abat Oliba CEU University and the University of Extremadura, which form part of the STEP Project Global Consortium (Successful Transgenerational Entrepreneurship Practices). These research groups collaborate closely with family business associations in their areas of reference: AVE (Valencian Business Association), ASCEF (Catalan Association of Family Businesses) and AEEF (Extremaduran Association of Family Businesses).

The Catalan Association of Family Business (ASCEF) sponsors 5 Chairs in Family Business in Catalonia at the Universities of Barcelona, Girona, Lleida, Abat Oliba CEU and the International University of Catalonia. These form part of a network of Chairs in Family Business throughout the country.

The Spanish family businesses participating in the study belong mainly to the service sector (69%), 15% of them conduct their activity in the primary sector and 16% in the secondary sector and are slightly larger than the national averages. Similarly, the leaders of the participating family businesses have an average age of 45 and the majority belong business families that are second or more generation.

The results of the study indicate that 28% of Spanish family businesses have a succession plan. Viewed from another angle, over 70% of current family business leaders admit to not having one. These figures are very similar in Europe and Latin America and representative of the study’s entire global sample (figure 13).

Having a succession plan in place suggests that family business leaders have become aware of the importance of preparing in advance for the succession process and that this process can be undertaken through reasoned criteria and in a professional manner.

The full report can be downloaded in the Knowledge section of the ASCEF website.

Xavier Marcet, the founder and President of the Lead to Change innovation consultancy, has given a virtual lecture entitled “The great challenges faced by family businesses in the time of Covid-19“. In the session, held jointly by the Catalan Association of Family Businesses (ASCEF) and the Cambra Chair of Family Business of the University of Girona on 11 November, he discussed the great challenges facing family businesses: the perspective of people, customer centrality and the sum of intelligence, talent and leadership.

Mr Marcet began by highlighting the importance of the difference between companies and business enterprises. “A company is a community of people with a purpose, to survive by creating customers but it always revolves around people: it generates employment and has a very important and deep-rooted history and ties to the territory; while a business enterprise can capture a great deal of value but contributes little to society,” he explained. “The problem we have with these business enterprises is that many times they are not linked to the territory, to employment or to the growth of society.”

“What we need to keep our society balanced are companies, communities of people where people are counted on, history is considered and there is a memory,” Mr Marcet said. “And Covid-19 has done nothing but emphasise all this.”

Mr Marcet stressed throughout the session that this people’s perspective “is a key, fundamental element that characterises companies. If people are respected, customers are respected.” He went on to say that companies must not stop thinking about customers “and not stop thinking about what they need and that they do not know how to express. Not today, but tomorrow.”

The coronavirus pandemic “has made it more than evident that not everything can be planned because the situation is changing every week.” In this regard, he said that “the dynamics to which we were accustomed have changed. We need to have a vision, a strategy, but to plan less. We must be able to adapt this strategy and planning in a world that changes faster than our ability to plan.”

“Why are we talking about flexibility? Because the world is moving fast, fluidly, and we need to be able to take decisions with uncertainty“, Mr Marcet added before explaining that, with regard to talent, “its flow, both in and out, is important“. Concerning leadership, he said that a good leader “has the ability to propose the vision and exemplify rather than to give good speeches; He is not someone who adds but who multiplies.”

Finally, regarding the situation in Catalonia and what would be needed, Mr Marcet said that “it is very important to be able to maintain companies that have given us our identity, companies with the will to exist and to grow. Not just thinking about having ideas but also about implementing them.“

Sixteen per cent of Catalan family businesses run the risk of shutting down in 2020 due to restrictions on activity caused by the Covid-19 pandemic according to estimates by the Catalan Association of Family Businesses (ASCEF), its President, Amadeu Jori, told the EFE news agency.

He said that ASCEF is calling on the Government for greater coordination and contact with social agents “who are the ones who really know first-hand what is happening.”

Mr Jori also asked administrations to provide financial injections to companies in difficulty, “not only with loans but with direct subsidies” as has been done in other European countries. “If economic activity is restricted in order to protect health, measures must be taken to prevent economic activity from collapsing,” he said.

The news was echoed in the media, both in general outlets such as La Vanguardia, Diari Ara and El País, and economic ones such as Expansión.

The President of the Catalan Association of Family Businesses (ASCEF), Amadeu Jori, participated at a business event held in Valencia yesterday to assess the status of the development of the Mediterranean Corridor. Catalan family businesses, like other business associations, called on the Government to ensure that the project does not undergo any further delays and is completed in 2025. The event was attended by Spain’s Minister of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, José Luis Ábalos.

ASCEF acknowledged the progress made on the international gauge rail platform and the opportunity to receive investment from Community funds for economic reactivation through alignment with the requirements of the EU plan. However, the Association also requested that the connection with the ports of Barcelona and Tarragona should not be ignored and expressed its hope that the Perpinyà-Montpellier stretch does not become a bottleneck if it fails to be concluded until 2034.

“A modern, fast rail freight line is a strategic infrastructure, one that is essential for the competitive development of exports in Catalonia and for companies to exploit their full potential in Europe,” Mr Jori said. Greater capacity in train traffic together with greater regularity and speed will not only facilitate logistics but will also reduce costs as rail transport is cheaper. In addition, trains cause less pollution.

• “Spain tops the rankings of the countries with the highest unemployment in Europe, both in boom periods and in times of crisis; we should ask ourselves why and attempt to solve this,” Mr Puig said
• The IEF President added that “all our efforts must be directed at enabling the maximum number of companies, and in particular the family companies that we represent and that represent a very high percentage of employment in this country, to overcome this difficult situation.”

One of the Spanish Government’s four Deputy Prime Ministers, the Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño, today closed the 23rd National Congress of Family Business, which has been held since Monday by the Institute of Family Business (IEF) and attended online by almost 1,000 family employers from all over Spain.

In his speech before Ms Calviño, Mr Puig said that “at this time, the enemy we have to fight is coronavirus and the crisis that it has entailed. When a society faces a challenge of this magnitude, it must demand that its leaders row in the same direction and join forces against that enemy. Efforts cannot be diluted in divisive battles.”

In addition to the human drama caused by the loss of life, one of the most serious consequences of this pandemic will be, according to Mr Puig, “the economic crisis that it is already causing, a crisis that is unprecedented. Although some sectors are safe, many others will be in a critical situation. Perhaps not all the companies that existed before the crisis can be saved, but many of them could survive and many others could mitigate the impact with a battery of appropriate measures. And we also enjoy the unprecedented support of European funds.”

Concern over employment
In Mr Puig’s view, “all our efforts must be directed at enabling the maximum number of companies, and in particular the family companies that we represent and that represent a very high percentage of employment in this country, to overcome this difficult situation.”

He wondered whether “conditions should be created that would make Spain the country where company development is facilitated the most and where the industrial fabric is best protected,” taking into account that “we are the country that will suffer the crisis the hardest, the one with the highest unemployment and the one that will generate the highest unemployment.!

Therefore, “the government’s agenda should be focused on this endeavour and other priorities left for other times. Let’s put aside some legislative initiatives that only place more obstacles in the way of companies and instead prioritise the protection of the business fabric, at least while our unemployment levels exceed certain pre-established thresholds. Otherwise, we will continue to top the rankings as the country that is the most affected and that has the highest unemployment in Europe, in an irreversible manner. And unemployment, among other things, we should remember, is the main generator of inequality,” he said.

A chance to modernise and develop
Despite the dramatic nature of the situation, Mr Puig said that “we have before us an opportunity to modernise, to bring about the next leap to new levels of technological, ecological and productivity development. That commitment is, at the same time, one of the keys to emerging from the pandemic crisis. The distribution of the European Union Recovery and Resilience Fund is not going to solve all our problems but it gives us a leverage that we must not squander. Family employers have a great deal to contribute, a very great deal, to ensure an efficient use of this aid that will enable Spanish companies to gain in competitiveness, create new and better jobs and emerge from this crisis.”

In this regard, Mr Puig highlighted once again “the full commitment and total readiness of the IEF to collaborate with the Government in identifying projects that fit the lines defined in the Plan España Puede (Spain Can Plan), ensuring that our institutional and disinterested collaboration will translate into tangible realities, into more efficient and competitive companies, into jobs with higher added value and into greater well-being for Spaniards.”

Mr Puig also wished to make clear that, despite everything that is happening, the Congress concluding today has not heard “the voice of despondency or the temptation to withdraw. What we have felt here, what I have the opportunity to verify daily in my conversations with many of you, is your non-negotiable commitment to the future, the indisputable desire for progress that you all display. And as we have demonstrated throughout the lives of our companies, crises are opportunities for us, through our leadership, to reinvent ourselves and face the future with renewed energy.”

Family businesses, up to the challenge
“We have much of which to feel proud and satisfied but we still have more to do and achieve. Because that ambition to do things better each day is the force that makes us entrepreneurs. For this reason, it is because of our permanent commitment to our companies and to society that family businesses are companies with a future. In a few years’ time, when this virus is only a bad dream, I would like to think that family businesses have once again risen to the challenge, surmounted all this and managed to take advantage and reinvent themselves. That is why we are going to be The Force of Recovery,” he concluded.

• Under the motto ‘The Power of Recovery‘, almost 1,000 employers from all over Spain are participating in the major annual meeting of family businesses that, for the first time due to the pandemic, is being held online
• Given the current situation, the Family Business Institute president says that many century-old family businesses have had to overcome numerous difficulties over their history: “We will do so too“

“Family businesses are essential to implement the process of relaunch, recovery and transformation that our country needs to address. This is because of our values and especially our leadership capacity“, said Marc Puig, Executive President of Puig and President of the Family Business Institute (IEF), at today’s opening of the 23rd National Congress of Family Business, which due to the pandemic is being held online for the first time. This has not prevented record numbers from attending, with almost 1,000 family employers, IEF members and the Territorial Associations of Family Businesses using the digital platform created for this purpose.

The Congress was opened by His Majesty King Felipe VI, who said in his speech that the crisis generated by Covid-19 “is a real challenge for Spain. And it is in these difficult times when we families, companies, institutions have to demonstrate our resilience and our willingness to join forces and find solutions that serve the short, medium and long term.”

For his part, Mr Puig thanked the Monarch for his attendance and recalled Felipe VI’s recent speech when he said that “to emerge from the crisis caused by the pandemic we are obliged to set a new economic course and promote a new development model that has inclusion as its basis.”

“This is already a global movement. We saw this at the time with the statement of the United States Business Roundtable, which proposed to distance itself from the doctrine of Milton Freidman, summarised in the headline of the famous article he published in 1970 that declared the maximisation of capital returns as the sole aim of business activity,. Well, not everything may be reduced solely to profit,” Mr Puig said.

On the contrary, the IEF President added, “our stance is that companies must simultaneously create economic prosperity and social value.” This is precisely “the characteristic of family businesses. Their time frame is counted in generations, not in quarters or days. And this gives us a different way of managing people; with the desire that they should remain in the company for a long time, fomenting training and internal promotion; even in times of crisis, family businesses are more resilient in the face of job destruction; with a value system that befits a family, with a different manner of establishing long-term relationships with suppliers and customers; and also a manner of relating to the community in which we operate, with a family’s desire to protect reputation and legacy, which roots us more in the territory and in the communities in which we operate. And as we think of forthcoming generations and the world that we will leave to them, we embrace the initiatives of environmental protection and sustainability.”

Values and leadership capacity
Mr Puig explained that the motto of this year’s Congress, THE FORCE OF RECOVERY, was chosen because “this is the idea that we wish to convey to society and institutions: that family businesses are essential to implementing the process of relaunch, recovery and transformation that our country needs to address. This is because of our values and, especially, our leadership capacity, which is accredited in some of the companies represented here, with some boasting over a century of history.”

In addition to institutional and political representation, the Congress programme also includes the presence of business and science representatives as well as IEF associates so as to provide a refined vision of the panorama we are facing and a clear message about the major contribution that family businesses are already making towards the resolution of the crisis we are experiencing.