ET Family Business Awards: Cos that keep stakeholders together manage to get things moving, says 360 ONE founder Karan Bhagat

Adapting to changing business models decade after decade while managing its different stakeholders simultaneously sets apart successful family-run businesses, said Karan Bhagat, founder of wealth management firm 360 ONE."We have families which have continuously adapted business models, well over 100 years," Bhagat said, speaking at the Economic Times Family Business Awards.

Managing four key stakeholders - investors, promoters, employees and clients - is extremely critical, given that these stakeholders are working for and with each other, and sometimes also against each other, he said.

While investors would love for the professionals to earn the lowest, professionals would want to maximize their compensation. Simultaneously, companies would want to charge the client the highest, while the client would want to pay the lowest, he explained.


"It is really those companies which are able to find the secret sauce, where they are able to work hand-in-hand and keep all of these four stakeholders together, which are really able to get things moving," he said. Businesses being built around these four stakeholders can be a large contributor to success, he said.

Bhagat also spoke about the combination of legacy, culture and hustle creating a positive multiplier effect for the business.

"For a new entrepreneur who is adapting a legacy, it is sometimes much, much more than a number. Because not only does he have to get the right culture, he must get a similar culture, he has to change the culture in a way where the legacy does not get broken. At the same point, he has his own hustle," he said.

Ownership, control, and management are the three vertices of a triangle which all businesses work on, and successful companies have found a way to really segregate and work along these, he said.

"As businesses expand, and different generations are sometimes located in different places of the world, they can kind of get all these three parameters put together. And if you can honestly get ownership control and management delegated to the right set of people within the family, it is a long way to go," he said.