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PUNE, June 30

REPRESENTATIVES of various family - owned and managed businesses in Pune city have come together to form the Family Business Forum, an organisation that seeks to help successor generations of old business families carry the business forward without any hiccups.

And no, this has nothing to do with the recent shock that most of them experienced when the city's most high- profile business family, the Bajajs, was struggling to stay together.

In fact, family disputes and differences are routine Kahani Ghar Ghar Ki according to the group's founding members led by Mr Ajay Mehta, Director, Deepak Fertilisers and Petrochemicals.

According to them, the forum will help family - owned or family-managed businesses to cope with and manage the agonies and ecstasies of managing the aspirations of individual members of the family and that of a business evolving from a small set-up to a large corporate entity.

The forum promises to provide the platform for successor generations to air their thoughts on various issues that crop up before family-owned businesses — typical worries about diluting stake, raising capital, making way for professional management and the resultant fear of losing control, among other things.

And, while it does not aim to provide solutions to individual problems, it promises to help the new generation by calling in experts for talks and discussions on various issues concerning family businesses, both in India and around the world.

Membership into the club, which has the likes of Thermax's Ms Meher Pudumjee, Forbes Marshall group's Mr Naushad Forbes and a clutch of other old Pune families, seems tough: Aspire to get in only if you are professionally qualified, have five years experience in the business and preferably have foreign exposure, "since this is only a forum for like-minded people''.

And, while the guest speaker for the inaugural session, Mr Sunil Lalbhai, could not attend the session due to torrential rains, it fell upon another Pune patriarch businessman, Mr Abhay Firodia, CMD, Bajaj Tempo, to do the honours.

Mr Firodia, who himself has a complex family business background, summed up the key to carrying on a successful family business by saying the ability to assimilate the founder member's motive in starting the business and modernising it in keeping with the demands of business today was one of prime importance.

The creation of wealth should be the prime motive of any business, whether family-owned or managed and the former should not expect to get the talent required to run an efficient business organisation within its fold, he cautioned, making a strong case for professional management.

"As business becomes more and more competitive, the pressure will make it imperative for businesses to become more efficient and this is possible only with the induction of professional management,'' he said.

And, perhaps in a telling comment on the number of family-run businesses that are splitting to make way for individuals forming it, he said: "The two most important factors that keep a family business together is total transparency and the willingness to allow individual members to grow and develop their aspirations. Families that don't allow individual members to develop are confronted with members who want to break out on their own,'' he said.

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