2016 Family Business Survey

This is the 8 th PwC Family Business Survey and it’s the largest yet. We’ve spoken to firms approaching their first generational transition, and those that can measure their longevity in centuries. We’ve talked to founders, next gens, and professional CEOs. We discussed global megatrends such as digital and globalisation, and the challenges of ‘keeping it in the family’.

Key issues stay constant year-on-year, but there is also change. In 2012, the dominant themes were skills, scale and succession. By 2014, this evolved to a focus on the need to professionalise both the business and the family. This agenda is far from complete, though progress is being made. This year, the shift is perhaps more fundamental: from the short term and tactical, to the medium term and strategic.

Watch a replay of the 2016 Family Business live webcast OnDemand

A glimpse of the Survey's key findings

A glimpse into the Survey's key findings

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A glimpse of the Survey's Key findings

The challenge is in the middle: having a strategic plan that links where the business is now to the long term and where it could be. This is what we are referring to as the ‘missing middle’.

Family firms are ambitious: they want to grow and ensure the long-term success of their business, but it is clear that many of the issues they face derive from a lack of strategic planning. Some are doing this, and doing it well, but in our experience, a much higher proportion are so absorbed in the everyday that longer-term planning is neglected. Family firms may lack the skills to develop such a plan and some may assume that ‘thinking in generations’ means that the medium term will somehow look after itself.

Family firms remain a vital part of economies across the world contributing the bulk of GDP in many territories. We’re committed to working with family firms and helping them make an even bigger contribution to growth and prosperity.

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Peter Bartels, Global Family Business Leader, PwC Germany & Stephanie Hyde, Global Entrepreneurial & Private Business Leader, PwC UK

Explore the Survey themes

Family firms are ambitious, entrepreneurial, and committed to the long term. But too many are risking the whole enterprise by not planning properly for the transition between the generations. We look at the best way to make a success of succession.

Family firms can struggle to develop medium-term strategic plans that link their immediate business goals with the long-term ambitions of both the family and the business. This has implications in areas like investment in innovation, and in obtaining finance for growth. What can your firm do to bridge the gap?

Professionalising the firm was a big theme in the 2014 survey. What's been achieved since then, and how can family firms take this forward? We look at the full implications of the professionalisation agenda, from the firm, to the family, to the Board and the role of the CEO.

Globalisation, digitisation, demographic change: Managing the megatrends in Russia

It’s relatively rare for Russian businesses to be genuinely international, and even more so for a private business. But Avgust is an exception.

Protection, promotion, and posterity: The business of heritage in the UK

Blenheim Palace is one of the most spectacular buildings in the UK, and a World Heritage site. It was built to celebrate the battle victory of the first Duke of Marlborough, and 300 years later is still the family home of the 12th Duke, which makes it one of the most enduring ‘family concerns’ we’ve ever profiled.

From cigars to 3D printing: Starting a new entrepreneurial venture in the Netherlands

Royal Agio Cigars has been in the cigar business for over a century. In four generations it’s built a prosperous and premium business, ranking 4th globally. But tobacco is a sector with limited growth opportunities, and the family who run Royal Agio has faced up to that challenge and used the most advanced modern technology to find a way forward.

Hitting the sweet spot: Growth and diversification in Japan

Châteraisé Holdings produces and sells Japanese confectionery as well as Western-style cakes and pastries, which it produces in its own factories using local ingredients from the Yamanashi area.

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