Inorganic growth: How family-run businesses master company takeovers

Family businesses are increasingly facing the challenge of dealing with growing competitive pressure and a lack of succession solutions within the family. For many family-owned companies, this means that they have to deal with inorganic growth strategies such as company takeovers. The latest volume in the WIFU publication series “Acquisition and integration processes in medium-sized family businesses” by Dr. Aike Hansen is dedicated to precisely this topic and explains what steps are necessary to overcome this challenge.

The analysis focuses on the question of how the often person-oriented decision-making processes in family businesses affect acquisition processes. Family businesses that have so far relied on organic growth, i.e. have grown exclusively through their own efforts, often encounter problems when it comes to tackling major acquisitions. Based on case studies, Hansen shows that a transformation of management processes from people-oriented to process-oriented decision-making can help to keep the complexity of the acquisition process manageable.

“The prevailing focus on individual leaders as the key decision-making premise often reaches its inherent limits in family businesses in the context of major inorganic growth initiatives,” says Hansen. “In order to successfully implement major acquisition projects, the traditional management processes must therefore generally also be critically scrutinized.”

“In a phase in which we can once again observe increased consolidation processes in many sectors, takeovers are also becoming an attractive growth option for family businesses,” adds foreword editor Prof. Dr. Rudolf Wimmer. “However, they can only successfully master such steps if they continue to develop their traditional management and organizational structures in a suitable manner.”

The 35th volume of Schriften zu Familienunternehmen has been published by V&R unipress and is available free of charge from the publisher's website.