Succession is a bullet every family business has to bite. How can they prepare for it?

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Synopsis
How should family businesses deal with the inevitability of succession? What are the challenges they face? Are they looking to hand over the reins to professionals while retaining control within the family? What are the skills they would be looking for in their successors? A recent survey offers some interesting insights.

Avid watchers of the TV series Succession would stay glued to the saga of an ageing media tycoon to find the answer to a complex poser: Who’s the right successor when it comes to taking a family business forward? Similar circumstances have unfolded in real life in the recent past at companies ranging from Bisleri to Cipla. According to the 2023 EY and University of St. Gallen Family Business Index, the largest 500 family enterprises globally