Family Business Survey 2012: Taiwan

Family Businesses in Taiwan have performed well over the last year and are confident about growth over the next five years. 70% have grown in the last 12 months and 90% are aiming to grow over the next five years. Family businesses in Taiwan view the need to innovate, the general economic situation, price competition and attracting the right skills/talent as key challenges.

Family businesses believe they hold some key advantages over non-family businesses including: agility/speed of decision making, effective internal communication, and motivation/values within the company and less bureaucracy. But they recognise the disadvantages too, such as challenges around succession, attracting/retaining non-family staff, access to capital, ability to innovate / change direction and the difficulty of making decisions that benefit the company but not necessarily the family.

Over half plan to pass the business down to the next generation, while a further 17% will pass ownership of the business down but will employ non-family management, and another 17% will adopt exit plan to IPO or sell out to third party. Some believe that family businesses will need to adopt more corporate behaviour in order to survive and thrive in the years ahead if the next generation are not up to the task.