Managing Family Business: Dynamics, Challenges, and Opportunities

This book explores the unique characteristics and complexities of family businesses in India. It examines the intersection of family dynamics, cultural norms, and business practices to offer valuable insights on how family businesses evolve, develop, grow, and sustain over time. With a focus on leadership and positioning for the future, this book illustrates how the family enterprise can achieve sustained growth and continuity through generations.

Covering a wide range of topics essential for understanding the Indian family business landscape, this volume:

• Studies succession planning and governance, managing family conflicts and harnessing innovation
• Analyses the various strengths and weaknesses of family businesses
• Shares insights on top-performing family businesses alongside the oldest businesses in India and across the world
• Emphasises and extensively discusses the role of women in the contemporary Indian business landscape

Insightful and engaging, this book will be useful to students, researchers, and teachers in the fields of business management, commerce, and economics. It will also be an invaluable resource for present or potential family business owners, managers, professionals, and business consultants.

Rajiv Agarwal is a professor of family business, entrepreneurship and strategy at SPJIMR, Mumbai. He is also the chairperson of the Strategy department at SPJIMR. He has been teaching across programmes, including the executive MBA (Post Graduate Executive Management Programme), two-year full-time postgraduate diploma in management, Post Graduate Programme in Family Managed Business and one-year executive MBA (Post Graduate Programme in Management). He advises families on subjects such as succession, wealth management, family offices and business strategies.

He has completed his PhD from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani. His thesis was on ’Factors Influencing Career Choices of Successors in Family Managed Businesses in the Indian Context’. He has done the Owner/President Management (OPM) programme from the Harvard Business School and an executive education programme from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is a holder of the Advanced Certificate in Family Business Advising and the Advanced Certificate in Family Business Wealth Advising from the Family Firm Institute, Boston, MA, USA. He was also appointed a Fellow of the Family Firm Institute in Boston in 2022.

He has authored the most popular Family Business Simulation: Honey Heritage, a simulation on family business which was published by Harvard Business Publishing. This is the first simulation on family business in the world. His book series, Management Lessons from the Masters, is about Mr Kumar Mangalam Birla, Mr Anand Mahindra, the Tatas and Mr Azim Premji. These books discuss the management lessons one can learn from these great Indian industrialists.

Dr Rajiv Agarwal’s seven bestselling cases on family issues and strategy have been published by Ivey and SAGE. He has written for various newspapers and magazines, including the Economic Times, Forbes, Fortune India, Business Today and Business India. He has been a keynote speaker at family business forums in India and abroad and is considered a thought leader and expert in family businesses. He was a founding member of KRCD India Pvt. Ltd (earlier, Koch Rajes CD Industries Pvt. Ltd), India’s first CD replication facility and today still runs his family business.