Small and family-owned businesses are regarded as the livewire of many economies around the world. South Africa is not an exception in this regard. In South Africa, family-owned businesses account for around 60% of the total workforce, make up an estimate of 70% of all businesses and contribute between an estimated 20−30% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The wellbeing of the family businesses in the country is not only important for the family members who inherit such businesses. It is important for the legacy of the founders whose sacrifices, hard work, and perseverance shape the future of their beneficiaries, their towns, their professions and the country. This means that efforts have to be made to sustain these businesses because of the large group of stakeholders who benefit from their existence.
WHILE THE LEGACY OF A FAMILY-OWNED BUSINESS is precious, the intricacies of passing it down to the next generation can be very complex. Identifying the next deserving leader, navigating through family politics, building the right experience, and getting the buy-inof customers and clients to trust the next generation are some of the thorny issues that are prevalent in succession planning.
In fact, many business leaders, including accounting and auditing practitioners, procrastinate confronting this conundrum. A reported 60% of South African family-owned businesses do not have formal succession plans. Because of all the emotional investment and personalisation of the business, it becomes increasingly difficult to know when to plan for and implement to transfer to the next generation. The absence of formal succession plans exposes the businesses to a significant risk of failure and an erosion of the hard-earned legacy of the founder.
SAICA’S INTERVENTION
SAICA’s vision enshrined in its 2024−2028 strategy includes being a professional body that enables sustainable economies and societies. It is important for our membership body to play a central role in solving economic problems in our country and abroad. In this spirit, SAICA has partnered with PUM, a Netherlands-based nonprofit organisation which specialises in management consulting, to tackle the succession planning problem in the country. This partnership entails member-focused workshops where practitioners are empowered with knowledge to deal with succession and strategic planning in their own practices and extend this skill as a service offering to their clients. More than 50 SAICA members have been trained on this important topic since the introduction of these workshops in 2023. The first workshops were held in Durban, Pietermaritzburg and Newcastle.
The 2025 workshop series
In 2025, two workshops were held: one in Johannesburg and another in Cape Town. 19 members attended the Johannesburg workshop and 12 the Cape Town edition. The sessions were facilitated by Senior Expert, Business Developer and Executive Coach Fred de Boer. Fred has extensive business consulting, entrepreneurial and academic experience spanning more than 30 years. The second facilitator was René Rotscheid, an experienced chartered accountant who is a former audit partner in a Big 4 firm and has led many other small and medium-sized firms. The sessions were highly interactive and filled with deep and topical content, as summarised below.
About the entrepreneurs
This section of the workshop focuses on psychological, sociological and business characteristics of an entrepreneur. The aim is to dissect the thinking process, the work ethic and the challenge of knowing when to systematically relinquish control and delegate leadership responsibilities to the next layer of employees as the business grows.
Working with family
This topic deals with the leadership styles in a family business. Comparisons between different types of leaders (being the charismatic boss, the dictator, the bureaucrat and the laissez-faire boss) are made. The discussion that follows seeks to give guidance on what kind of leadership is likely to bring success in a family-business context. The power and the family business and the navigation of separating family matters from the business are dealt with in detail.
Management in family business
Managing a family business entails integrating all parts and aspects of the business into one manageable and coherent system. The emphasis of this topic is striking balance between family and business and making them independent of each other. The discussion focuses on developing and adhering to family values that ensure sustainable and cordial relationships between different generations in the family. Dealing with family conflict which has a significant potential to spill over into the business is also addressed in the content.
Transferring
The last unit of the content deals with various optionsthat the founders have to transfer the company and its legacy to their successors. The content is not prescriptive in a sense that it addresses a variety of successors and not just family members.
CONCLUSION
Preserving the legacy of the great minds that build solid organisations, regardless of the scale, is an important contribution that SAICA is actively making. The partnership with PUM is going to create local experts that will continue to move this skill forward. It is one of the projects that seek to solidify the relevance of our members and empowering them to make impactful contribution to our economy. Members who wish to be part of these workshops in 2026 must be on the lookout on the SAICA website for training offerings in the latter part of year.
Author
Innocent Mthembu, Manager: SMME | SMP Sector Growth
