Without family enterprises, the American economy will go back 50 years

 The so-called family business, as its name implies, is family + enterprise. The family business is the most common form of business in the world. Among the world's top 500, family businesses account for about 40%. In recent years, the global ranking of family enterprises has been increasing, and their performance is very excellent. Through the study of American family enterprises, some people conclude that family enterprises are the pillar of the American economy. Without family enterprises, the American economy will go back 50 years. The index of family businesses in Germany has soared, while the index of non-family businesses has risen by more than 47% in recent years.

At present, the main body of family enterprises in China is still small and medium-sized enterprises, which is not "prosperous", but the vitality of many enterprises is really like the flower of the desert, which is very tenacious. With the increasing expansion of A-share small and medium-sized boards and gems, it is necessary to deepen the understanding of these family enterprises.

There are usually four common types of family businesses, either with father-son relationship as the core, husband-wife relationship as the core, a brother (sister) relationship as the core, and friends relationship as the core. According to Zhou Xibing, a researcher of the family business, and others, the last relationship is strictly not a family, but a "quasi family", but its members maintain the characteristic of the close emotional relationship between standard family members, who are often called brothers.

Usually, family enterprises pay more attention to the long-term development of enterprises, because it is not only the lifeline of enterprises but also the lifeline of survival and sustainable development. They will not sacrifice medium and long-term development for short-term performance. The performance of one or two years can't explain anything, but it's more clear from a long-term perspective. Because family enterprises pay attention to long-term development, their performance is also relatively stable. Because we pay attention to long-term interests, we also need to invest repeatedly. In fact, reinvestment is very common in family businesses in the United States. Of course, focusing on long-term development may make enterprises miss the maximization of some short-term performance, but it can increase the survival probability of family enterprises in crisis and the probability of long-term stable returns.

Market segmentation is the first choice for family enterprises because the gap in these markets is ignored by large enterprises. Chris Anderson, the initiator of the long tail theory, found that niche products can also exude the economic charm of brilliant performance like mainstream products. Family businesses are like this. Their goals are highly concentrated, their product lines are narrow, their consumption costs are low, their production costs are low, and their commodity pricing is intolerable to large enterprises. They used their knowledge assets to catch up and surpass, so they achieved extraordinary success.