Family businesses will not survive without good management and proper planning, said an expert on the matter.     

About 80 percent of global gross domestic product comes from family business, according to Ganesh K Raju, PricewaterhouseCoopers India's leader of entrepreneurial and private business department. 

“So, family businesses are very important,” he said at a workshop on the topic, organised by PwC Bangladesh at its office yesterday.  

He said the most successful family firms are those in which there is a good balance between professional management, responsible business ownership and a healthy family dynamic.

Referring to family business survey of PwC, Raju said only 4 percent of the family businesses sustain into the fourth generation.

The first generation builds up the family business, the second generation protects and boosts it, and the third generation destroys. “This is a global phenomenon,” he said.

For the first time Bangladesh has been included in PwC's Family Business Survey for 2018; its last edition came out in 2016.

The global professional services firm is conducting a survey on a number of family businesses, said Mamunur Rashid, managing partner of PwC Bangladesh.

“We are getting very interesting information from the entrepreneurs. The second generation of some of the families do not want to join the business, while some have no idea on how to run the business, etc.”