In a study published by the Institute of Skilled Crafts (ifh), the University of Göttingen comes to the key conclusion that 125,000 skilled crafts businesses and 78,000 companies are due for handover in the next five years. The number will continue to rise gradually until 2030.
In the face of this initially overwhelming number and the continually criticized lack of skilled workers, everyone reading this is probably now thinking that finding a suitable successor for his or her life's work is an almost hopeless undertaking.
But this does not have to be. Good preparation of the matter in the case is everything.
The German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology is currently funding 18 model projects run by craft trade organizations under the initiative "Company succession - from practice for practice". These projects are testing new ways of approaching and supporting potential successors. Click here for the list of model projects.
Handing over and taking over a business is a complex process that raises many questions.
When is the right time to prepare for the handover? Where do I find a successor if the children are not interested? How do I find and promote a committed and interested employee or look for a candidate from outside? What forms of handover are there and what is my business worth at all?
Answers to these rather complex questions can be obtained free of charge from the relevant chambers of crafts. Here, business and management consultants are on hand whose sole focus is the succession planning of trade businesses and companies.
Parameters that are taken into account are also:
An advertisement created with them as an offer or request on the company exchanges of the chambers of crafts is also free of charge. These can be found on the websites of the chambers and on the nationwide succession exchange nexxt-change. nexxt-change.org
Many willing successors and thus potential buyers do not know that they do not have to contribute their own capital alone, but that subsidies can double or triple equity capital. All that is required here is to find the right legal form. If the seller prepares this information on financing structures in advance, the result is a much more relaxed, successful and sustainable starting position.
Here, too, it is important to allow sufficient time for preparation and then also for processing. Several months often pass before all regulations, confirmations or funding agreements have been processed. According to experts, 8 months is a realistic amount of time. In this way, you ensure that your successor does not have to expect any recourse obligations and can guarantee him a secure basis for further work.
No one can deny the change in values that has taken place over the past 20 years. The successor generation is less interested in economic interests than in a well-weighted life consisting of work, family and leisure. Increasingly, awareness of resource conservation, energy and nutrition is being heightened by the consequences of climate change that are already being felt.
The interest in a self-employment in the handicraft can be influenced therefore only lastingly to the positive one by taking up these important topics and developing them as an experienced one.
Handing over one's own business or company in a future-oriented and forward-looking way certainly brings the decisive advantage over those who stick to the tried and true. All in all, this means good prospects for all those who nevertheless want to take the plunge into self-employment and see the meaning of self-employment in a self-determined life with a lot of personal responsibility but also with many degrees of freedom.
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In this sense, it is exciting to get a picture of this: Who is actually going to do what in the future? And above all, how? The idea that there are only physically hard-working men in the skilled trades who have difficulty using digital technology and tools is an absolutely dusty cliché from days gone by and urgently belongs in mothballs.
Many smart young men and especially women have great visions, solid plans for the future, and yet a sense of tradition. Where they network, you should be too. On Gründerinnenportal.de for example, thereby however only one of the many portals for humans with will is called to the independence.
Here it is simply a matter of getting right into the middle of it. To talk to each other and learn from each other.
With good preparation, clear goals and the use of suitable external help, the succession is sure to succeed and the twilight years can come.
We wish you much success!