On family-owned businesses
I have been working 8 years in a privately held, family owned business
nearly 85 years old. Its growth has been consciously controlled but
steadily larger over the years. Today its products are found in virtually
every country around the world, along with offices in over a dozen
countries.
The family owners are very far-sighted (or so it seems to me) and try to
keep abreast of both market pulse and impulse. The company is run by two
brothers who share one large office at the center of which is an oval,
oaken meeting table (brothers can retire to personal Herman-Millers in the
corner to work alone).
In our case, the vision of the company is built upon three applications:
MRPII, ISO 9001 and total quality deployment. With active Hoshin planning
in recent years, top management is changing the nature of what might
otherwise be a very, very traditional New England company which might have
gone the way of the shoe industry (which, among others, we served decades
ago, before WWII).
So privately held companies can and do move in the same rarified air as
best-in-class publics. We think we can, we think we can.
-- Barry Mallis Total Quality Resource Manager MARKEM Corporation 150 Congress St. Keene, NH 03431 bmallis@markem.com