A new study suggests that family businesses are well placed to cope with the effects of the pandemic, and that they will be crucial to leading the economic recovery.

KPMG Private Enterprise carried out this research, alongside the STEP Project for Family Enterprising. The two organisations spoke with the owners of 2,500 family firms from around the world, and the results show that the different ways family businesses are structured gives them greater resilience and a more long-term focus.

The study compared family firms with more than 500 businesses that are not owned by families and found that, when it came to laying off employees to survive the pandemic, nearly 2% fewer family firms were forced to resort to this. Instead, the family businesses were more likely to concentrate on improving their digital services.

Furthermore, while most of the family firms that took part stated that COVID-19 had impacted on their profits, a higher number managed to avoid this by changing strategies compared with non-family firms. A total of 22% stated that they had experienced no profit drop, while 9% indicated that profits had actually risen. Overall, there was a fall of 8.56% in the number of employees of family firms, compared with 10.24% for other types of business.

Speaking to Consultancy.uk, Tom McGinness from KPMG said that family firms had proven adaptable in the face of a crisis by streamlining or looking to fresh markets for their services or products. These firms can also call on a family business accountant from Doncaster or anywhere else for help with their finances.