Sometimes external advisors are needed to solve problems caused by succession in the family firms. Franchesca’s article on Family business succession and external advisors categorizes the issues that comes with succession:
Soft issues: matters related to family and business which “refer to relationships between family members, individual emotions, personal feelings, communication, successor’s motivation and education, transfer of the entrepreneurial role, etc. (Cesaroni and Sentuti, 2017, p.168).
Hard issues: Hard issues are largely related to the ownership subsystem and refer to monetary, technical and legislative matters (Malinen,2004) concerning inheritance, financing, taxation (Cesaroni and Sentuti, 2017, p.168).
With these issues that comes with succession in family enterprise, external advisors can are needed because they can provide unbiased perspective/opinions on the issues the firm is facing internally, they can also help the family navigate through difficult conversation and also provide their expertise in navigating succession planning in the firm.
source: https://www.cartoonstock.com/cartoon?searchID=WJ900391