First Family Business course successfully completed at MCI

Businesses receive vital support in meeting their specific challenges: innovative compact course receives excellent feedback for its promotion of sustainability, further development, and professionalization of a fundamental pillar of the economy

Family business owners and successors were able to actively deal with the systematic planning and future development of their enterprises in the framework of the four-month Family Business certificate course at MCI, which was specifically tailored to their needs. They were assisted in this important task by experienced and first-class lecturers, who themselves offered different perspectives on complex issues as well as interesting and practically relevant discussions.

The focus of the course was on the typical interconnection of family and entrepreneurship and its multi-layered complexity arising from the requirements, expectations, responsibilities, as well as possible jurisdictional and role conflicts of family-owned businesses. In particular, the course dealt with the internal and external challenges to the family, the predecessors and successors, employees, banks, clients, and further stakeholders as well as to the business itself. Based on appropriate state-of-the-art methods and instruments, the course also taught its participants how to take action in critical situations successfully, and how to overcome conflicts.

The first graduates are full of praise, not only for the innovative course, but also for the accompanying platform, which was recently launched by MCI. As a joint initiative of MCI and the Tyrolean Economic Chamber focusing on research, teaching, and further training the MCI Family Business Center in fact helps strengthen the economic power of owner-managed businesses. Susanne Neuhauser, managing partner of Idealtours, puts it in a nutshell: “I consider it very important and valuable to have a platform at hand which facilitates exchange based on trust and equality.” The participants particularly appreciated the combination of theory and practice. Wolfgang Sief, CEO of SIKO Solar, summarizes his experience as follows: “During the intense course, we were given the opportunity to look at our business from different perspectives and to discuss the theoretical content of the course in relation to our business.”

Both participants recommend the new course to all family members who hold a position of responsibility in their family’s business, plan on taking it over, or are in the middle of takeover, irrespective of the size of the company. Susanne Neuhauser believes that, ideally, “predecessors and successors participate together to profit from the mutual exchange.”

Anita Zehrer, head of the MCI Family Business Center is delighted with the positive response to the first completed course: “The Family Business study program was developed to help family businesses integrate innovative approaches into their structures, optimize their processes, strategically position their enterprises, and achieve significant overall improvements.”

Susanne E. Herzog, head of the MCI Department of Executive Education & Development, adds: “We consider it our responsibility to contribute to the competitive capacity of family-owned businesses with this innovative and practically relevant certificate course.”

Press contact
Mag. (FH) Ulrike Fuchs
+43 512 2070-1527
ulrike.fuchs@mci.edu