Toolbox fostering business succession

A very common situation in family businesses is, that even if they would like to go through generational exchange, these companies do not know how. Combined with possible complications on their path, such as financial or legal issues, personal issues of the current owner or even lack of a apparent successor this creates a very negative starting position even for a well established business, not talking about small family businesses without handful of advisers, legal department etc.

The Toolbox, one of the main outputs of ENTER-transfer project,  will be a comprehensive tool primarily targeting established family businesses and descendants of their owners as well as young entrepreneurs in the pursuit of the business transfer.

It draws business owner’s attention to key aspects of business succession process and allows him/her to evaluate individual areas related to the succession. System offers four succession modes: within the family, within the company, to sell to the investor and to liquidate the company in a targeted manner. Business succession process is evaluated in 4 stages: information, analytical, conceptual and implementation. In each of these stages, business owner gradually answers questions related to the process at that stage. At the same time, the business owner has the opportunity to invite other key actors to the application – e. g. family members, but also employees, lawyers, consultants who answer the same questions. The output of the application is a comparison of individual answers and identification of potentially problematic areas in which there is no consensus in the preparation and process of business succession in a family business and therefore it is necessary to pay attention to them.

Through this detailed "Road map" it will provide a detailed guidance for the given stakeholders ranging from the preparatory steps to accomplishment of the business succession process both at the national and transnational level. The toolbox will be available online and in paper version in English and 5 other languages (Slovak, Czech, German, Polish, Croatian). 

The development is planned to be finished in March 2020 and the Toolbox is expected to be launched for public use in April 2020.