On 16 June 2025, PwC Switzerland published a study of the next generation in family businesses: in half of all cases, succession starts without a clear structure or an overall plan. In January 2026, UBS and the University of St. Gallen added the figure that best explains the problem: 76 % of SME owners believe their company's success depends closely on themselves or their managing director. Business succession planning starts long before the signature: a company can only be handed over if it can run without the person who is leaving.
Key takeaways
- According to PwC Switzerland, half of all successions in family businesses are launched without an overall plan, and a quarter of successors wish the handover had started earlier.
- According to UBS and the Center for Family Business at the University of St. Gallen, 32 % of SME owners plan to transfer their company within five years, which means almost 168,000 SMEs by the end of 2030.
- Dependence on the owner or managing director is the most frequently cited risk factor: 76 % of owners recognise it in their own company.
- The study estimates that around 59,000 intended successions could fail within five years, almost all of them in companies with fewer than ten people.
- What makes an SME transferable can be built: written processes, tools and data that do not belong to a single person, clear roles.
What is happening
The PwC Switzerland study gives a voice to those who take over. It is based on an online survey carried out between December 2024 and January 2025 among 132 successors in family businesses, aged 18 to 47. In half of the cases, the succession process was launched before any clear structure or overall plan had been defined. A quarter of respondents would have liked the handover of responsibilities to begin earlier, 25 % report conflicts over the transfer of ownership, and for 34 % of them, a succession outside the family was never considered. The successors themselves name what makes a handover succeed: careful preparation, a clear division of roles and open communication.
The 2026 succession study by UBS and the Center for Family Business at the University of St. Gallen (CFB-HSG) looks at the other side: 401 Swiss SME owners surveyed in September 2025, with results weighted to represent the country's business landscape. Almost a third of them (32 %) plan to transfer all or part of their company within the next five years. Extrapolated, that is almost 168,000 SMEs by the end of 2030. The average age of the owners surveyed is 58, and 78 % founded their company themselves: most of them are facing a succession for the first time.
The study then identifies the risk factors that cause a planned handover to fail. The most frequent is neither price nor market: 76 % of owners believe their company's success is closely tied to themselves or to the managing director. A buyer then fears losing, when the boss leaves, the know-how, the customer relationships and the ability to make decisions. Combining these risks, the authors estimate that only 65 % of planned successions will succeed. Around 59,000 could fail within five years, or almost 12,000 a year, almost exclusively in micro-enterprises. One of their recommendations reads, in so many words: reduce dependence on key people and document the company's processes.
The topic remains at the top of the agenda. In the 2026 Entrepreneurs Study published by Lombard Odier on 29 September 2026, based on 282 Swiss family businesses, succession and transfer of the business are named as the main concern by 45 % of respondents.
What it means for your business succession planning
These figures say one simple thing: you do not hand over an SME, you hand over an organisation. If the organisation lives in the owner's head, there is little or nothing to take over. A successor, whether a child, a manager or an outside buyer, first looks at what will keep working on the Monday after they arrive.
In practice, dependence tends to hide in four places.
Processes. How a quote is prepared, an order launched, an invoice issued, a customer chased: if it is done "the usual way", nobody else can reproduce it.
Tools and access. Email, the domain name, the accounting software, supplier accounts: if they are opened in the owner's personal name, with passwords only they know, the company does not really own its own tools.
Data. Prices, customer history, margins by type of job: when they live in a spreadsheet on a laptop or in the owner's memory, the value of the company becomes hard to demonstrate, and therefore to sell.
Roles. Who approves a discount, who chooses a supplier, who hires: if the answer is always the same person, the handover cannot be gradual.
The good news is that these four areas make the company stronger long before any succession. An SME that can run for two weeks without its manager is also an SME that survives an illness, an accident or simple overload.
What I have learned
I have seen a family business from the inside. Between 1998 and 2002, I joined my family's joinery business as a labourer, learned the trade on the job, then site management, customer relations and logistics, until I ran the company. I later left it, by choice, when my daughter was born. In a family business, much of the knowledge passes from person to person in this way, on the job. That is its strength, and its weakness on the day someone leaves: whatever is written nowhere leaves with them.
In 2020, I built a café from scratch with a goal set from day one: to hand it over to the person who would run it. Everything was built for that. I defined the roles and a simple organisation chart, wrote a manual for each position, the opening and closing procedures, cash handling, recipes and quality standards. I trained a team with no prior experience, then coached the manager in running the team, making decisions and handling the finances, handing over responsibilities step by step. In 2021, she bought the business and became its owner. The team was already working without me. The details are in the Alquimista Café case study.
I have also learned that a handover is not the only way out. With ZTR Trikes, an import business I had set up after a market study, I decided to stop after two years because the market was not following. The UBS study makes the point: a closure needs preparing too.
My other trade, information systems, taught me the same lesson from another angle. When I set up the IT for AtonRa Partners, technical documentation was handed over to the team: a system that only one person understands is a risk, not an asset.
What to do in practice
1. Run the absence test
Ask yourself honestly: if you disappeared for two weeks without a phone, what would stop? Write down every decision, every access and every customer relationship that has to go through you. That list is your work plan.
2. Write down the processes that keep the business running
Start with the ones that bring in money: quote, order, delivery, invoicing, reminders. One page per process is enough, written with the person who does it every day. The goal is not a perfect binder, but something a newcomer can rely on.
3. Take the tools and data out of your pocket
Put accounts in the company's name, keep access credentials in a password vault shared with a trusted person, and bring key data (customers, prices, stock, accounting) together in a system that others know how to use. Management software helps, but only if the team actually uses it.
4. Clarify roles and delegate in stages
Map out who decides what, then transfer one responsibility at a time, staying available as a mentor. This is also what the UBS study recommends: support your successor in a coaching role, so the knowledge really passes on.
5. Keep your options open and set a timetable
Family, a manager from the company, an outside buyer, or an orderly closure: look at several paths instead of settling on one too early. For legal and tax matters and for valuation, work with a fiduciary and a lawyer; my role is to make the company ready to be taken over.
Frequently asked questions
When should you start preparing a succession?
Several years before the target date. The UBS study points out that a transfer of ownership typically takes many years, especially within a family, and a quarter of the successors surveyed by PwC would have liked to start earlier.
Is my company too small to be handed over?
No, but that is where the risk is highest: according to UBS, failed successions almost exclusively affect companies with fewer than ten employees. The smaller the company, the more important it is that it does not rest on one person.
Should I install new software before selling?
Not necessarily. What matters is that the data is complete, accessible and understood by someone other than you. A new tool only makes sense if it replaces scattered files and the team adopts it.
Going further
I support SME owners, as an advisor and Master Coach ICI, in making their company less dependent on them: processes, roles, tools and data. Discover strategy and support, or book a 20-minute call to take stock of your situation.
Sources
- "PwC Switzerland succession study", press release, PwC Switzerland, 16 June 2025: pwc.ch
- "La succession d'entreprise en Suisse : de quoi s'agit-il ? Étude sur les successions 2026", UBS Chief Investment Office and CFB-HSG (University of St. Gallen), January 2026: cfb.unisg.ch (PDF)
- "2026 Entrepreneurs Study: Swiss family businesses accelerate their technological transformation, but succession remains a major challenge", Lombard Odier, 29 September 2026: lombardodier.com
Cover photo: Marshall Public Library / Unsplash, "Shoe Repair", archive photo (unsplash.com)
Tags: business succession planning, SME succession, family business, organisation, processes, leadership coaching