Building Successful Family Businesses Programme
with Harvard Simulation

“In a simulation, one has to live with the consequences of one`s decisions, and face these over 8-10 subsequent steps. Unlike a case, one can also see the impact of the decisions in real time, which enhances learnings” Dr. Rajiv Agarwal.

“Honey Heritage”  is the world’s first  family business simulation that  looks at the complexities in family businesses and packs that into a game of action learning. The simulation is published by Harvard Business Publishing, the publishing arm of the Harvard Business School.

Students are tasked with building and growing a sustainable honey business as it’s passed down from generation to generation while balancing the dynamics of business, family, and ownership.

Dr. Rajiv Agarwal, who developed this simulation where the players must take decisions based on the challenges that the typical business family faces, over three generations. It challenges the users to think about the various issues that families have to face, and encourages discussions on some of the most pressing topics, before they arise!

The Building Successful Family Businesses Programme (BSFBP) addresses some of these key challenges that family businesses face and helps participants work out solutions towards resolving them. This would be done over a two day period.

Honey Heritage is the world’s first Family Business Simulation designed for families across multiple generations. It is designed to be used across geographies, ages, generations and needs no prior setup or reading!

Specifically, the programme seeks to answer the following questions:

• What are the challenges that the family business will have ?
• What are the possible ways a family can address these?
• What are the structures, policies and processes that a family business needs to have?
• How value can be added to the business in a five-year timescale- and how to resolve these strategic dilemmas?

The programme is held over two days, and will based on a mix of case discussions, lectures, group discussions and a simulation. The participants will explore ideas and best practices relevant to your business and family for the present and future.

The topics would cover the following:

• Understanding the dynamics of family, business and ownership
• Developing a shared plan for the future of the business and family
• Creating a strategy for the business and family for the present and future
• Understanding the roles of the various family members in the family and business
• Identifying the role and responsibility as owners of the family business
• Establishing a plan for the next five years for the future of business and family
• Understanding the path for growing and sustaining the family and business.

The above topics would explore challenges of growth, professionalisation, succession, raising funds, and family and business governance. At the end of the programme, the participants would have an enhanced understanding of the above along with an action plan for addressing these challenges in the future.

It is recommended that multiple members (teams of two or more) from the same business family attend as participants for the greatest learnings. This programme is restricted to family members owning, managing or working in a family business only.

We would be using a simulation hence we would need all participants to have individual laptops for the entire two days.