ENGLISH 23 will strengthen their competitiveness in the long term. Here, it is important to bear in mind that the true strength of small to medium-sized enterprises in Germany has never been attributable to their machinery or facilities alone. The key competitive edge is and has always been the people, their experience, creativity, and ability to develop custom solutions, even for highly complex challenges. Succession planning in a small to medium-sized enterprise is therefore far more than just the search for a suitable CEO. It is a long-term transformation process that ideally begins years before the generational handover itself. But this issue is pushed aside all too often – due to a lack of time, uncertainty, or simply the hope that a solution will somehow just arrive. Experience has shown, however, that successful succession plans are almost always born from timely and structured planning. The first question that arises here is whether succession within the family is even possible. Today, many children from entrepreneurial families have different career aspirations or are already living abroad. Meanwhile, growing numbers of young people are consciously shunning the responsibility of running a business – and not due to a lack of interest, but because they realistically assess the growing complexity of business decisions. If familial succession is not possible, alternative models will inevitably become more important. Management buyouts, equity investments by longserving executives, partnerships with investors, or mergers among small “Passing the Baton” – Managing business succession through good planning
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