Forum to help families grow businesses set for April

WITH 80 percent of the businesses in the country run by families, an organization will hold a conference to help family enterprises grow and sustain their business even after the third generation of the family will take over.

The conference dubbed Family Enterprise Excellence Conference will be held on April 13 at the Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Casino.

“The conference theme is to highlight the leaders in family enterprise management who have successfully grown their family businesses such as finance, legal strategy and governance. The professionals will provide useful tips and insights to family enterprises in their journey to sustainability,” said Jon Ramos, Premier Business Family Consultants, Inc. (PBFC) president.

Ramos said that this would be the second time that they would hold the conference in Cebu and they would hold a roadshow in other other provinces and cities in the Visayas and

Mindanao.

Organizers are targeting at least 500 participants in the conference especially with the road show.

resource center

They also plan to create a Family Enterprise Excellence Resource Center from the proceeds of the conference.

After the conference, part of the proceeds will be used to set up the center which will then offer programs for the family business enterprises.

Ramos said the center will be under the Family Firm Institution (FFI) that is based in the United States, which has a database of many useful tips and success stories and models of family business enterprises.

“We will be offering different curriculum in the center which members of the family can learn together following the useful inputs from our partners which has vast experience in promoting sustainability in among the family enterprises,” said Ramos.

advocacy

According to   Jacob Cabochan, Ateneo Family Business Development Center (AFBDC) and PBFC consultant,  their advocacy is timely because at present most of the big names and companies in the country are already transitioning to the second and third generation which is the period when difficulties are usually experienced.

“The richest Filipinos according to Forbes includes Henry Sy, the patriarch of the SM Group, Lucio Tan, John Gokongwei and more. These are mostly family business enterprises and they are now going towards transition to the second and third generation which they have to do right to sustain the business,” said Cabochan.

IMPACT

The enterprises have direct impact to the economic growth of the country according to Ramos which is why it is very important to be able to successfully sustain family businesses from first generation to the next generation of family members to come.

The event is co-organized by the University of Asia and the Pacific-Southeast Asia Business Studies and the AFBDC./Reporter Aileen Garcia-Yap