“Family businesses represent 50% of French jobs, which is considerable.” Philippe Grodner, president of the Family Business Network (FBN), sets the scene. For this second-generation family business leader, “their sustainability is essential” since they represent 83% of French businesses (75% of SMEs and 50% of ETIs according to a study FBN Adrien Strategy and METI, 2023). To achieve this, these companies must pay attention to several essential points.
Relational quality
The first? Their social and human capital. “The quality of relationships between managers and their employees and between employees themselves is one of the main characteristics of the family business,” explains Philippe Grodner. “It is embodied and marked by the DNA of the managing family.” Nicolas Desforges, 30, sees this in his daily life alongside his brothers. Since 2019, he has been working for Maison Caulières, a cosmetics company created by his elder brother Xavier. “We know how each other works,” explains the thirty-year-old. “We dare to tell each other things frankly.”
But achieving this balanced relationship between family and professional life takes time. “What was difficult was learning to distinguish between the moments when we spoke as spouses and as colleagues,” says Elisabeth Couëtoux. With her husband Erwan, she launched a farm specializing in spirulina – a micro-algae with many virtues – 5 years ago. She invites all those who want to work as a family “to put things into perspective and learn, before starting, to distinguish between your colleague and your loved one.”
Léa Greuin, co-founder with her mother Carole of the bulk grocery store Mon Bocal in Argenton-sur-Creuse, also experienced this period of adaptation. “At the beginning, it wasn’t easy. In the pressure of opening, I took up a little too much space, I was quite directive.” The business leader advises “dialogue to find a balanced rhythm”. Furthermore, for her, you have to know your partner well, because working as a family is “not for everyone”.
To prepare well, the Family Business Network recommends that its members create a family charter in order to anticipate all the subjects that will potentially be conflicting tomorrow. “The successor, the arrival of spouses in the company, remuneration, etc.,” explains the president. “The strength and weakness of the family business is affect.”
The long-term challenge
Family businesses can finally be real linchpins of the local economy through their territorial roots. “They allow for revitalization in certain regions,” explains Philippe Grodner. This is the case of Léa and Carole in Argenton-sur-Creuse. They opened the town’s first grocery store there. Nicolas and his brothers are also very attached to their land. At the heart of their project are the oils produced by their father in Touraine, present in the composition of each of their products.
But the FBN president insists on one point in particular: the long-term vision of the company. “Families think in generations and not in quarters,” he emphasizes. “This is also their greatest challenge, because at present, a large number are in a crucial period of their transmission.” By 2030, 60% of family businesses will be affected by this transfer. The current management generation, the baby boomers, will soon leave their place to the next one. But the transfer takes time: “it takes between 7 and 10 years to best prepare a transfer.” A real challenge for the French economy while the intrafamily transmission rate in the country is lower than the European average. In France, this transfer concerns 14 to 20% of family businesses compared to 50% to 70% for Germany or Italy.