In an economic climate defined by relentless cost pressures and wage inflation, top-line growth is no longer a reliable indicator of business health. Data from the 2026 Family Business Survey brings this dynamic into sharp relief. When examining the post-pandemic performance of family business between 2022 and 2025, a critical structural pattern emerges: the presence …
Continue reading Why Family Businesses Need Counterbalancing Boards to Defend Margins
For family businesses, growth often masks a silent crisis. Expanding order books and climbing top-line revenues can create the illusion of health, while underneath, margins deteriorate, overhead escalates, and business owners find themselves working harder for diminished returns. The data from the recently published 2026 Family Business Survey (conducted by EMCS Advisory in collaboration with …
Continue reading Why Strategic Thinking is the Key to Profitable Growth in Family Business
In the recent 2026 Family Business Survey family business leaders demonstrated clear awareness on the importance of training. Survey respondents overwhelmingly agreed that "besides training for our employees, it is also important that family business owners and directors get trained on how to lead a family business" (scoring a decisive 1.87 on a 1-to-5 scale, …
This week we had a very successful and well attended Family Business Conference, which was co-organised by the Malta Chamber, EMCS Advisory and the Family Business Office. During this conference we unveiled the results of the 2026 Family Business Survey. The results of this survey speak loud and clear and speak about a common reality …
Continue reading The Dangerous Lie of the “Busy” Family Business
One of the most consequential decisions a family business owner and leader faces is determining when to hand over the reins. In family businesses, that choice is layered with emotional weight, generational history, and founder identity. Yet as the author Adi Ignatius highlights in his latest Harvard Business Review article, overstaying leadership also carries organisational …
Continue reading The Stepping-Down Dilemma: Why Succession Demands Strategy Over Intuition
For over a decade, the Maltese economy has operated under an expansionary model fuelled by rapid population growth and intense domestic demand. For local family businesses, this climate created an operating environment where increasing turnover appeared almost inevitable. However, juxtaposing the recently published Central Bank of Malta’s analysis of the EUROPOP2025 demographic outlook with the …
A few days ago the results of PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) where published, which is an international assessment coordinated by the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) that measures the knowledge and skills of 15-year-old students in science, reading, and mathematics. Analysing the latest PISA 2025 results for Malta alongside the findings …
To navigate the complexities of running a modern family enterprise, the Family Business Survey 2026 examines the internal tensions between commercial expansion, boardroom formalisation, and relational dynamics. Rather than treating challenges in isolation, the 2026 Family Business Research study looks across the full life cycle of family business—from daily operational bottlenecks and succession readiness to …
Continue reading What questions will we address in the upcoming Family Business Conference?
To provide family business leaders with actionable insights, a national Family Business Conference will take place on 1st October 2026 at The Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry. Organised collaboratively by EMCS Advisory, The Malta Chamber, and the Family Business Office, the conference will unpack the extensive findings of the Family Business Survey 2026. …
Continue reading What topics will be covered in the upcoming Family Business Conference?
Managing a family business requires balancing complex dynamics aligning family relationships with commercial realities, passing leadership down through generations, and adapting to rapidly shifting economic environments. Just like we did in 2022 and 2024, we also conducted an expanded family business survey between March to June 2026 to shed light on several family business critical …
Continue reading Turning Growth into Profit – Family Business Conference 2026
