How does a company transition from family owned business to world class, professional business?

I feel like I consistently see companies have growing pains going from family owned business to large world class business.

What are examples / manifestations of these growing pains in this awkward phase, and what is usually done to solve them?


One example, if helpful, is vendor negotiation. I've noticed that family run businesses, even at the larger end, are reluctant to give up working with vendors that might be charging 2x what the business could pay elsewhere.

A PE firm might come in and say you don't want to have these legacy relationships anymore because to scale, you really need the best deal you can get.

So in this example, you have a founder/family enjoying having stable, legacy relationships with vendors (those relationships are obviously a plus) whereas you have a PE firm saying go hunt out cost savings (obviously a plus).

How do you strike a balance between the old way of doing things and the new way of doing things?

 

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