The ways big data is impacting today’s business climate may be too numerous to count. The ability to access oceans of data relatively easily is a fairly new but massive phenomenon. And while many are excited about the capability, few are seriously examining how to leverage this data to exercise the core function of any business – sell a product or service in the marketplace. Few areas are as greatly impacted by this development as marketing and customer relationship management. But how does having so much data about customers improve marketing decisions for companies?

There are currently strides being made in answering these questions. Certainly, cloud-based solutions are available that can help businesses leverage data to lower their Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), for example.

Studying these emerging issues quite intensely is expert Michael Haenlein, Professor of Marketing at the business school ESCP Europe, Associate Dean of the ESCP Europe Executive PhD Program and the Scientific Director of the ESCP Europe Research Center on Big Data. Professor Haenlein’s research expertise lies in customer relationship management (CRM), social media and marketing research. Specifically, he analyses the relationship between social networks and customer profitability.

Growing a family business into a profitable and successful enterprise is a challenging process and, once there, other questions present themselves. How does the family deal with its newfound wealth and affluence? How do you ensure children grow up without an unhealthy sense of entitlement? How do you adjust to this strange new world?

Dr James Grubman, wealth psychologist and family business consultant, helps families find practical answers to these questions. Aside from his academic training, he draws from a wealth of personal experience having first navigated this rocky terrain when helping his mother sort through their estate following his father’s passing. Later, he and his wife had to find ways of raising children responsibly in an affluent household.

Dr Grubman is the author of two books that explore this territory - Strangers in Paradise: How Families Adapt to Wealth Across Generations, and Cross Cultures: How Global Families Negotiate Change Across Generations, which he co-authored with Dennis Jaffe, PhD.

Recently Tharawat Family Business Podcast sat down with Dr Grubman to discuss the complexities of newfound wealth and the problems that arise when cultures and generations come into conflict.

It would be a stretch to say the Freddura family invented calamari. However, as the proprietors of the Daily Catch, Boston’s pre-eminent seafood restaurant, they are at least partly responsible for solidifying its place as a staple appetiser in North American restaurants.

“My family helped get calamari in Webster’s dictionary,” explains Dominic Freddura. “Before it was squid, and we said, "This is the Italian word for squid."

Dominic’s father, Paul, was looking to make a splash in the restaurant industry when he opened the Daily Catch in 1973. Paul was born and raised in the North End and grew up eating his mother’s seafood-centric Sicilian cuisine, including fried calamari. At the time, the dish was popular in Europe and parts of Asia but was relatively unheard of in North America.

Paul learned about the seafood business from veteran fishermen at the docks and knew an opportunity when he saw one. Clams, easily the most popular catch, were exorbitantly priced, while squid was going for just 15 cents a pound. Paul decided to open the Daily Catch and place his mother’s calamari at the heart of the business.

Interview with Matthew Hoffer Craig, Managing Partner, and Rebecca Bachmann, Chief Strategy and Technology Officer, Spire Strategy & Risk Advisory, Switzerland

The most successful business partnerships can take root just about anywhere. Some occur in the boardroom, while many others happen at the gym or on the golf course. But then there’s the case of Rebecca Bachmann and Matthew Hoffer Craig, who struck up a conversation on a bus heading to a tech conference and are now partners in Spire, a Swiss-based strategy and risk advisory firm.

They realised that with extensive and complementary skill sets, they could meet a demand that had yet not been addressed in the marketplace. Formed in November 2016, what makes them stand out from the rest is their self-described approach:

“Ingrained in our DNA is the belief that a great strategy requires unrivalled contextual intelligence. Spire’s approach is designed to obtain this intelligence through a holistic analysis of key quantitative and qualitative data points within and between three pillars: organisation, industry and environment.”

If past performance is any indication of future success, then the sky is the limit for the pair behind Spire. Together, Rebecca and Matthew’s collective work experience involves stints at Strategy&, the World Economic Forum, the US Department of State, General Dynamics and J.P. Morgan Investment Bank.

Tharawat Magazine recently sat down with Rebecca and Matthew to discuss the new enterprise and how 21st-century technology is affecting the global business landscape.

The challenges facing a family-owned business are wide-ranging; however, the Chair of Family Business sets out to become a thought leader by focusing on specific topics such as innovation, entrepreneurship, strategy, governance, and succession.

Through their research, Kammerlander and her team have come to discover that many conventionally held beliefs about family-owned businesses – such as that they lag in business innovation – are not true.

Tharawat Magazine sat down with Prof. Nadine Kammerlander to discuss her research and what the future holds for family-owned businesses.

From the coastal town of Aabenraa in what is now Denmark, two young men, Heinrich Jessen and Jacob Jebsen, whose fathers and grandfathers were sea captains, set out on a trading expedition to the Far East in the late 1800’s. The two men who were also cousins proved very adept at bridging the cultures and establishing profitable trading partnerships, and in 1895, they went into business together. In 1909, they created Jebsen & Jessen Hamburg in Germany to facilitate trade between China and their European clients.

Today, there are two separate branches of the family enterprise, one that operates out of Singapore and the other out of Hong Kong. Together, the business has commercial interests in manufacturing, engineering, mining and distribution activities. Serving customers globally the group employs more than 7,000 people.

Tharawat Magazine had the opportunity to speak with 3rd generation member Heinrich Jessen, CEO of the Jebsen & Jessen Southeast Asia Group to discuss his family’s adventurous history and the key to longevity.

What are the ingredients of a strong company culture? In most cases, it is the result of hard work, consistency, and accountability; characteristics adopted by owners and employees alike. Family businesses are no exception. It might seem tempting to assume that family ownership would result in strong culture and a sense of purpose naturally, however, the reality is different.

Dov Baron is a best-selling author, with 30 years of experience he has been twice cited by Inc.com as one of the “Top 100 Leadership Speakers to Hire”. Over the years, his expertise has taken him around the globe where he has been the headline speaker for organisations, and global conferences focused on purpose-driven, authentic leadership and cultural strategies.

In this interview, Dov discusses the popular misconceptions surrounding company culture, the similarities and differences between culture in family-owned businesses and their non-family peers, and advice for those families who struggle to identify their driving purpose.

Rodolfo De Benedetti was a mere 30 years old when he became the CEO of Compagnie Industriali Riunite (CIR) Group, a business established by his father, Italian business tycoon, Carlo De Benedetti who founded the company in the mid-1970’s. Today, the CIR Group is one of Italy’s most important consortiums with companies in the media, automotive, and healthcare sectors.

Not only did Rodolfo De Benedetti need to steer the company through difficult economic times but he had to do so while trying to establish his own way of doing things. Leadership can take many forms, and De Benedetti’s leadership skills were shaped and honed by the unique challenges that faced him. Not the least of these was ensuring the company thrives through the disruptions of technological disruptions.

Tharawat Magazine had the opportunity to sit down with Rodolfo De Benedetti to discuss leadership in the 21st century as well as the challenges and opportunities when faced with a great legacy.

Texas-based husband and wife owners of Saddleback Leather, Dave and Suzette Munson, built their leather goods business by prioritising the highest quality for their products, treating employees and colleagues like family, and dreaming of expanding their business so they can increase their global philanthropic efforts. Saddleback Leather is an unquestionable runaway success. The business that started by selling handcrafted leather bags on eBay now has a major production facility in Mexico and headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas.

The fact that philanthropy is woven into the DNA of everything Dave and Suzette do is a significant part of why Saddleback has such a loyal and devoted customer base. And their efforts to inspire other businesses to follow in their path are gaining traction.

In a conversation with Tharawat Magazine, Dave Munson discusses the early beginnings of Saddleback Leather and how he came to develop his unique corporate philosophy.

When husband and wife team Jorge Aranguri and Rosario Bazan started their Peruvian agri-business company Danper in 1994, they faced a challenge; when clients and business partners were introduced to Rosario Bazan as the company’s CEO, more than a few eyebrows were raised since female executives were not the norm at the time.

Despite the resistance faced, Jorge and Rosario continued to champion the causes of gender equality, health care and education for their workforce. 23 years later, Danper is a shining example of what determination can do with more than 8,500 workers and 10,000 hectares of cultivated fields by the north and south coast, as well as in the central and southern highlands of Peru.

Tharawat Magazine had the opportunity to sit down with Jorge Aranguri to discuss his company’s journey and the impact they’ve had not just on the local economy but also Peruvian society.