As per the recently released Kreischer Miller Family Business Survey 2016 titled ‘The Impending Perfect Storm Facing Family Businesses’ the global financial crisis has disturbed the retirement timelines in many US based family businesses. The survey was conducted among 100 privately held businesses in the Philadelphia region, including South Jersey and northern Delaware.
The survey found that 62 percent of senior generation owners plan to transition their business within the next 10 years. Yet 65 percent do not have a clear retirement plan and just over half (51 percent) do not have a succession plan.
The report also found that existing leaders were making potentially dangerous assumptions about the willingness or ability of people to transition into leadership roles. While almost two-thirds of family businesses do not have a succession plan, 85% of respondents believed that either family members, non-family members or a mixture of the two would step up to the plate if an unforeseen circumstance required sudden leadership change.
Only thirty-seven per cent of respondents had a development program in place for the next generation, with educational seminars (52 percent), mentoring programs (48 percent), and peer groups (48 percent) topping the list, followed by paying for an advanced degree (22 percent) and online training (18 percent).
Source: http://www.campdenfb.com/article/financial-crisis-delays-family-business-succession-planning-baby-boomers