Business Corner
STRATEGIES & ANALYSIS
BY PHIL PHILLIPS
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
PHILLIPS@CHEMARKCONSULTING.NET
Talking about generations
Are follow-on
generations
much different
when it comes
to core
sustaining
elements in the
management of
closely held
companies.
Over the years, through observations and
in recent studies, Chemark has determined that what triggers the start of a
coatings or paint company and what sustains it
are certainly married elements to some extent,
but fraught with anxieties of difference.
Chemark investigated 110 closely held coatings companies in North America all within
the sales revenue range of $15-100 million.
Our interviews were accomplished both
directly and through a pre-mailed questionnaire for guidance purposes.
The objective was to determine what made
the original entrepreneur start his/her coatings business as well as find the key sustaining factors that made the business
viable over generations.
Chemark discovered several general truisms pertaining to the first four generations
of entrepreneurs.
First generation entrepreneurs had a vision
of how things should be based on experience
that usually differed with his/her employer or
generally, the typical way things are done.
The second generation had a tendency to go
along with the first generation’s vision, but found
only subtle elements to massage and tweak.
The third generation had a desire to branch
out beyond the core strategy of the founder,
mostly in new markets but sometimes into
new geographies or technologies.
The fourth generation entrepreurs tended to
be of two diverse extremes. They were either
totally disinterested in the business or were
aggressively interested in making a much different statement or reason for being and,
therefore, creating a different company altogether than any of the previous generations.
Of the 110 coatings companies we interviewed, 17 fell into the first generation category,
37 in second, 30 in the third and 26 in the fourth.
The survey included 21 basic questions.
Three areas were particularly important to our
conclusions including the traits an entrepreneur must possess to start a coatings business,
the key drivers required to sustain the business and the traits an entrepreneur must possess to sustain and run a coatings business.
TRAITS AN ENTREPRENEUR MUST
POSSESS TO START A COATINGS BUSINESS
Twenty traits were identified that an entrepreneur must possess to start a coatings business.
Of the 20 traits considered, the dominate trait
