Most family businesses do not survive beyond two or three generations. One of the main reasons for the short life span of family business due to a lack of governance in the family. Family better management, business development becomes more pleasant journey and ensures business continuity from generation to generation. The case of an Indian family business, GMR Group, which was established a quarter century ago, and in 2010 became one of the largest diversified infrastructure organizations in the country with a major interest in the infrastructure (energy, roads and airports) and production (agro-business, mainly sugar). Since its founding, the group has come a long way from an independent family owned company holding corporation with several companies under its control, along with external stakeholders. Group's growth was led by an entrepreneurial zeal and organizational capacity of its founder GM Rao. Seeing the destruction of many family businesses in the absence of adequate control mechanisms, Rao led the way for a constitution of his family with the help of several experts. The whole family spent a lot of hours, and after several rounds of iteration created and signed the Constitution in 2007. The process of drafting a constitution, as well as policies and processes developed are optimized for maximum performance and GMR being of present and future generations in the family. The case reflects the general process of writing and the output of the family constitution. "Hide
by K. Ramachandran, John Ward, Sachin Waikar, Rachna Jha Source: Richard Ivey School of Business Foundation 16 pages. Publication Date: November 18, 2011. Prod. #: W11509-PDF-ENG
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