I am Saad Aslam. I was an academic researcher, a Ph.D. student. In 2014, when I was identifying industry problems, I discovered that 70% of businesses fail under the second generation, and only 15% can ensure their survival in the third generation. This percentage decreases further in subsequent generations.

For my research, I selected business management transitions from the senior to the new generation in family businesses. What problems do they face? How can these problems be addressed? And what is the overall success model that family business owners can adopt to smoothly hand over their businesses to the next generation? To get the right answer to these questions, I took help from three different groups and studied over 200 books and articles on the topic.

The first group comprised academic researchers in family business succession worldwide. I established relationships with them and learned about theoretical perspectives on family business succession. There were plenty of books, articles, and theories to explore.

Now it was time to study the actual market. I identified 20 businesses in Pakistan managed by the 3rd or 4th generation and took time to study their systems. After that, I needed to find a way to implement all this learning and understanding. Even though I had all the information, I didn’t know how to implement it. So, I identified another group, which was the worldwide family business succession consultants. I contacted three top consultants and learned about their processes and actual implementation techniques.