Unstable government policies, lack of entrepreneurship legacy have been cited as some of the reasons many businesses go into extinction seemn after the founder dies.
The MD/CEO of Xerox Nigeria Limited, Engr Femi Okunade, stated this at the Second Annual Public Lecture of Totmak Farmers’ Centre, Ifo, Ogun state.
Okunade observed that apart from a handful small family businesses or brands in Nigeria that have colonial ties, it’s often not the norm to find businesses or brands that have outlived their founders in the country.
Speaking on the theme: Building Trans-generational Businesses; Prospects, Challenges and Strategies, the business leader substantiated that Nigeria is blessed with abundant resources that can be leveraged to build companies and organisations that can last several generations like coca-cola, nestles and others.
He stressed that the engine of growth and main driver of socio-economic development-wealth creation as well as the well being of any nation are businesses formed by entrepreneurs with a large portion of such businesses family- owned.
The business leader implored business owners to foster entrepreneurship across generations to be part of the statistics of success to increase the chances of survival of their businesses after them.
Okunade whose company Xerox, a member of Ran Xerox worldwide, explained that family involvement in the firm is a source of unique and imitable resources and capabilities which borders from familiness firms entrepreneurial orientation and decision making activities.
He described transgenrational firms as forward-looking strategy that creates a set of adaptive values and protocols which promotes family unity and business acumen; saying the engagement of family firms in transgenrational entrepreneurship should incorporate the possession of an entrepreneurial mindset across several generations.
Okunade identified socio cultural values, to an extent affect individual and group behaviour as well as the institutions and organisations in which they are embedded; adding that different norms might affect how the family and business systems relate to each other which is capable of altering managerial decision making, the creation and development of family resources as well as firms’ entrepreneurial approach without jeopardising the social, emotional and economic endowment of the family in the firm.
According to him, “The transgenrational firms are totally different from the traditional family firms that are seen as risk averse and very conventional in their dealings and structure.
“For firms to be transgenrational there must be entrepreneurial spirit and mindset across several generations, which will eventually lead to what one may call entrepreneurial legacy.
“Some socio-cultural practices, values and norms are more conducive to fostering rather than inhibiting the mindset leading to entrepreneurial behaviour and the extent to which the family affects firm resources and capabilities,” he submitted.