“Legacy is an intangible, invisible force that affects the decision making of the next generation in the business, and in life in general. Legacy has also been called the “connective tissue” that links generations in a family business.” – very well marked by someone, carrying the generation old business to the next level.
I am the second generation businessman of our more than 40 years old business of sodium silicate and its derivatives, started by my father Mr. Ram Patel in a small village of Gujarat, India with a global vision and big dreams. He started from the scratch and managed every aspect of business, be it production, quality check, marketing, distribution, operations and finances.
Ever since my childhood, I have seen my father working very hard with a well planned growth strategy and have helped him all through our vacations. This, I believe has helped me a lot in learning and observing every single aspect of a growing business and inculcating the values and ethos that my father started his business with. Honesty, Quality and Integrity are a few of those ethos I have always followed and will continue to in every sphere of my life.
The real challenges started when I returned from my business studies from the UK and joined the family business. Firstly, joining the already established business, with a tag of “director’s son” was not so easy at all. This, according to me, is perhaps the first and most difficult challenge. It takes time and a lot of behavioral efforts for the employees to accept you by choice and not only by force.
Next challenge one can face is with the external world, is counting on your words and thoughts being a younger one to join the age-old business. All your peers may consider you to be a “not-so-matured” decision maker. It is your confidence, attitude and finally your performance that counts to the external world. More you show the results, the more they start believing in you.
The final one is bridging the gap between two generations! Yes, the era has changed from no technology and process automation to 100% of both. Transforming your business from people driven to process driven, setting up automation and convincing the older generation to go digital are the burning issues for the new generation. Again my act here was to first start with a small scale, showing the result of automation and the power of digitization and then gradually taking it to the next level.
