Cocamatic's Palomares says family continuity need not mean family management

Mónica Palomares, general director of Grupo Cocamatic and vice-president of SAJUCAL, told the XIX Congreso de Juego de Castilla y León that family continuity does not necessarily mean family management. She spoke in the second panel discussion at the congress, moderated by Ramón Cubián, general director of Suelo of the Comunidad de Madrid and delegate for the ordering and management of gambling.

Palomares said a family company can be run by external professionals, and that what matters is that the company is well directed. She described joining the company 25 years ago, after finishing her degree and master's, without work experience, and said she and her siblings entered without planning or defined roles. She said she arrived with training and willingness to contribute but without a clear idea of her role, and that colleagues who had worked with her father for more than 20 years often told her she lacked experience and should be patient.

She set out three lessons. The first was to move from people to organisation: establishing new responsibilities, defining common processes, sharing information through databases and CRM, bringing in professionals and beginning to separate ownership from management. She said professionalising does not mean adding bureaucracy or setting the family aside, but that each person should occupy the place where they can add most value, whether or not they are family. The second was to decide with experience and data rather than experience and intuition alone, so that knowledge belongs to the company rather than to one person. The third was to organise the family as well as the company; in 2006 the family began work on a family protocol, which she said involved difficult but necessary conversations and taught the importance of setting rules before problems arise.

Palomares distinguished preparing succession from preparing continuity, saying continuity means the company keeps growing regardless of who leads it. She said her father gave them responsibilities and allowed them to decide, make mistakes and learn, and that commitment cannot be asked of the next generation without letting it take decisions. She said experience outside the family company is important, and that a surname gives the opportunity to enter but legitimacy must be earned.

Cocamatic is preparing the step to a generation of cousins with different training, interests and life projects, and Palomares said probably not all of them will be able to work in the company. She said they should be prepared to be good professionals if they join and good owners if they pursue their profession outside, and that as an owning family they want the next generation to know the business and understand its responsibility, not only its right. She said the aim is to leave a company with professional teams, shared information, clear responsibilities and the capacity to keep adapting and competing.

On attracting talent, she asked the sector to explain well what it is, so that young people think not only of gaming machines but of technology, innovation and professional opportunities. On consolidation, she said there is no single model and each family must decide whether to grow, specialise, share services or join a larger project, but cannot keep doing the same thing. She said family companies need not be worse for being smaller, and cited independent neighbourhood supermarkets that have remained independent through collaboration models and shared platforms. She also asked the sector to value its customers more, saying many people play and that this is normal.