of bubbles and bursts: where is sustainability in all this?

Transcription

Press coverage – April 2011
Summary of clips:
•
April – Business Life(British Airways In-flight
magazine) – Super power: A renewable energy
company in Laos does things the simple way, by Stuart
Read
•
April – EHlite (EHL school magazine) – A new
executive joint program by IMD and EHL
•
April – China Entrepreneur (China) – Columns from
Bill Fischer and Jean-Pierre Lehmann
•
April – Supply Chain Movement (Europe) – Inshore,
off shore, which shore, by Carlos Cordon
•
April – European Financial Review (UK) – Responding
to the growing challenge of “good enough” competition,
by Adrian Ryans
•
April 1 – Le Temps (CH) – How TomTom went global a model to follow, by Dominique Turpin
•
April 2 – Fast Company (USA) – Global is the New
Normal, by Maury Peiperl
•
April 2 – Le Temps (CH) – Feature article on Doha with
Jean-Pierre Lehmann
•
April 3 – The Jakarta Post (Indonesia) – How to
manage complexity in global organizations, by Ulrich
Steger
•
April 4 – Forbes (USA) – The Japan that will rise from
the ashes, by Jean-Pierre Lehmann and Dominique
Turpin
•
April 5 – Financial Times (UK) – Quote from Joachim
Schwass
•
April 6 – The Times of London (UK) – Buddha needs
to have his say, by Martha Maznevski
•
April 6 – Nyheds Magasin (Denmark) – Article
featuring Tom Malnight and the book “Must Win Battles”
•
April 8 – Marketing Magazine (Australia) – CMOs and
Twitter, by Willem Smit. This article also ran with
ADAsia (Singapore), MarketingMix (South Africa),
BizCommunity (South Africa), Gulf News (Dubai),
Incentive (USA) and Direct Marketing International
(UK)
continued
IMD in the news | June-July
•
April 12 – Expresso (Portugal) – Article with Nuno
Fernandes
•
April 12 – Italia Oggi (Italy) – IMD is a leading school
for top managers
•
April 12 – Bloomberg BusinessWeek (USA) – An IMD
MBA entrepreneur develops Poken
•
April 13 – Al Ittihad (Dubai) – Feature on IMD’s AEDP
program with Hischam El-Agamy. Article also ran in
Khaleej Times (Dubai)
•
April 13 – L’Hebdo (CH) – Quote from Stéphane Garelli
on the state of the US dollar
•
April 15 – The Wall Street Journal (International) – Is
India’s economic growth socially sustainable, by JeanPierre Lehmann
•
April 15 – The Economic Times (India) – The class as
the classroom, by Martha Maznevski
•
April 16 – Shanghai Daily (China) – Should English be
lingua franca of business, by Maury Peiperl and Karsten
Jonsen
•
April 18 – Le Temps (CH) – A new executive joint
program by IMD and EHL, Lise Moeller quoted
•
April 18 – Kommersant (Russia) – Article from Arturo
Bris
•
April 19 – Ejecutivos (Spain) – Article from Michael
Wade
•
April 20 – Revista Exame (Brazil) – Martha Maznevski
quoted on IMD’s MBA
•
April 20-22 – Globe & Mail (Canada) – Three part
series on entrepreneurship, by Michael Wade and Mark
Arnason
•
April 22 – Milano Finanza (Italy) – Article from Carlos
Cordon and Winter Nie
•
April 25 – Harvard Business Review (USA) – Why
Nokia’s collapse should scare Apple, by Seán Meehan
and Patrick Barwise
•
April 26 – Business Times (Singapore) – The evolution
of developing new ideas, by Bill Fischer
•
April 26 – SwissInfo (CH) – Article on Don Marchand’s
“SMS for Life” case study
•
April 26 – Wall Street Journal (USA) – Quote from
Stéphane Garelli on the royal wedding in Monaco
•
April 27 – Target Marketing (USA) – Is your social
media strategy SICK, by Michael Wade
•
April 28 – Management (France) – Interview with
Dominique Turpin
•
April 29 – The Associated Press (Appeared in over
100 news outlets) – Quote from Jean-Pierre Lehmann
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Inshore, offshore; which shore?
Challenges and new realities facing the supply chain
By Carlos Cordon
UK
EUROPEAN FINANCIAL REVIEW
April 2011
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Article
USA
April 4, 2011
Article location:http://www.fastcompany.com/1744253/global-is-the-new-normal
Global Is the New Normal
By Maury Peiperl
Sometime in the last 10 or 15 years, when most of the world wasn't looking, the longdiscounted predictions of a fully globally integrated working world came true. Goods, money,
services, and especially information now know essentially no boundaries. And as for people,
although we can stay in one place if we want, there aren't many professionals who don't find
themselves crossing borders, at least virtually, pretty often. More to the point, we are getting
so used to it that we no longer focus on the borders, but rather on the connection being
made--a "figure-ground shift" as it is sometimes called when what used to be the picture
becomes the background and vice versa.
I don't think of myself as particularly extreme on this dimension, so consider the following as
illustrative rather than exceptional. When I sat down this Saturday morning to consider what
to write, I happened to think back on the week just past. It struck me that in the last week--all
in the normal course of business or personal life--I had the following experiences:
1. Spent the weekend in Greece, teaching an elite group of college students from some 30
countries who were brought for a business forum by a global professional services firm. (I
taught them a case study about turning a multi-local company into a global one.)
2. Spent Monday evening at my home in Switzerland, where I had dinner with an academic
who was visiting from Israel to interview for a research post.
3. On Tuesday, flew with my daughter from Geneva to Washington, stopping over in England
to have lunch with friends before going back through security to catch the transatlantic flight.
4. On the plane, finished reading a wonderful English novel which takes place almost entirely
in England, but to which the conclusion is, essentially, that the country is too provincial, and
the heroine decides to move abroad.
5. On Wednesday, mailed the third payment for a two-week trip I am planning to make in
October with some fellow shortwave radio enthusiasts, to the Eastern Kiribati islands in the
Central Pacific. (There will be no Internet. I am wondering if I can handle it, but thinking it may
be a good thing.)
6. On Wednesday and Thursday, made 10 hours of calls to Germany, preparing to run a
workshop for a German-based multinational on the subject of change and integrating across
boundaries.
7. Also on Thursday, had a 2-hour video meeting with colleagues in which we decided to
extend a job offer to a Chinese-American who does research in Taiwan. Information essential
to this decision had just come from a colleague who had interviewed the candidate from
Shanghai.
8. On Friday, had a Skype conversation with an Italian coach and researcher, planning a
project on the topic of expatriation, including several case studies about a global
telecommunications firm. Also attended a faculty meeting in Switzerland by telephone.
9. In the course of the week, I also bought airline tickets on itineraries to France, Germany,
and the Czech Republic, and held several conversations with a colleague teaching on the
grounds of a South African game preserve. I also e-mailed back and forth with a friend in
Egypt, planning a training program for formerly-trafficked women to be held this summer in
London.
Okay, perhaps this week was slightly more global than others. But only slightly. It will not
seem at all unusual to tens of thousands of working professionals. Yet the most important
indicator I had this week that global really is the new normal wasn't about me, or about a
global professional elite, at all:
10. I caught up yesterday with my friend Joao, just returned from 4 months in his native Brazil
(the central portion, not the big coastal cities). He hadn't been back for a while and was
impressed with the economic growth and increasingly global outlook there. Hardworking and
entrepreneurial, although lacking a college degree, Joao is always looking for the next
business opportunity--usually in construction contracting. And although he has spent a fair
amount of time in the U.S., and his wife and children are there, Joao's friends in Brazil opened
his eyes to the fact that many of the business opportunities today have no U.S. connection
whatever. His latest project, backed by a Brazilian consortium, is the construction of 40
houses in Khartoum, Sudan. He has never been to Africa and speaks no Arabic, much less
any of the dozen or more Sudanese local languages. But he is headed off this week.
A global worldview is no longer just the province of elites--top executives in global companies,
say, or senior government officials, or PhD professors, many of whom already take it for
granted. More and more working people are now coming to understand that opportunity
knows few borders, and acting on that understanding. When that kind of boundary-spanning
action reaches critical mass--something I believe is happening right now--for the first time in
human history, global really is the new normal.
Follow @FastCoLeaders for all of our leadership news, expert bloggers,
and book excerpts. [1]
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April 4, 2011
Leadership
The Japan That Will Rise From The Ashes
Jean-Pierre Lehmann and Dominique Turpin 04.01.11, 3:50 PM ET
As we mourn all the deaths and suffering from Japan's earthquake and tsunami, and
especially think of our numerous IMD alumni and friends who may have been affected, we
also see that the tragedy provides an opportunity--even a responsibility--to draw broad
lessons and look forward.
Both of us know Japan well, having lived, studied, taught and worked extensively there. We
have maintained close contact with Japan and its leading companies for many years. During
the 1980s we shared a fascination with the country, and we were not alone. Japan was truly
awesome then, especially the world of enterprise. Japanese companies were dauntingly
innovative. But it wasn't just the world of industry. This was also a time when the Japanese
came to master many culinary arts, including the French. As Frenchmen, we had to admit that
some of the best French cuisine in the world (including France!) was to be found in the
recipes of Japanese chefs in the restaurants of Tokyo, Osaka, Fukuoka, Sendai and many
other Japanese cities. The last edition of the Michelin gastronomic guide doles out a
whopping 266 stars to Tokyo restaurants, more than to Paris and London combined. Fashion,
architecture and classical music were among other areas where the general Japanese
atmosphere of creativity prevailed.
During that period Japan's global soft power spread. Japanese studies centers opened up in
universities across the West; many of Japan's Asian neighbors publicly expressed their desire
to learn from the country; sushi restaurants spread around the planet; manga defined a new
artistic genre; Japanese overseas travelers multiplied; Tokyo became the world's biggest
stock market; Japan became the largest donor of foreign aid; and many Japanese brands
became synonymous with quality and innovation. In 1989, when IMD first published its
ranking on competitiveness, Japan was firmly in the No. 1 position; the U.S. was third.
Then Japan took a radical and unexpected turn. The asset bubble burst in the early 1990s,
and both the Nikkei index and property prices plunged precipitously. However, it was more
than just that. As we argued in a joint publication in 2002, Japan seemed to have failed to
understand, let alone anticipate, the profound transformations brought on by several key
driving forces of the turn of the century: demographics, the information technology revolution,
the rise of China and globalization.
In spite of physical and cultural proximity, atavistic attitudes toward China prevented the
Japanese from responding appropriately to rising Chinese competition. As for globalization,
Japan, with one of the fastest aging populations in the world, hasn't been able to seize
external growth opportunities, and many Japanese companies are stuck in their domestic
market. The Japanese have been unready in many ways, including in the basic but
fundamental imperative of mastering the English language. In a 2009 comparative survey by
Educational Testing Service, Japanese test-takers scored below those from North Korea and
Myanmar!
Also, while Japanese companies retained their leads in many hard electronic products, the
playing field rapidly shifted to the Internet, and attempts by Japanese entrepreneurs to create
new businesses à la Steve Jobs were quickly crushed by the large traditional Japanese
companies. Today there is no Japanese equivalent of Microsoft, Google or Apple.
For the last couple of decades, not only has the economy been sluggish, but so has the spirit.
Japan was the talk of the world in the 1980s; in recent years it has been conspicuously
absent from global discourse. The country seems to have entered a phase of deep
depression. Japanese speak increasingly of their country's garapagosuka, meaning
Galapagos-ization, in reference to those isolated islands hundreds of miles from Ecuador.
Japan's own anomie has led to global indifference and criticism.
Yet the terrible tragedy of earthquake and tsunami has shown the Japanese in many ways at
their finest. In the face of devastation they have displayed courage, dignity and perseverance.
Many foreign commentators have remarked on the amazing stoicism of the people and on the
order they have managed to retain amid the carnage. In how many countries in the world
could you imagine that?
As the world watches Japan with anguish and admiration, we are all reminded of the
Japanese people's great resilience and how much they have to offer. The dead will need to
be buried and mourned, those who suffer will need to be consoled, and the damage will need
to be repaired. But we hope that Japan's incredible past phoenix-like capacity to rise from the
ashes will manifest itself again, and that having shown themselves so dignified and
courageous in the face of great tragedy, the Japanese will leave the Galapagos and rejoin the
global mainland, from which it stands to benefit, but also to which it can bring so much.
March 11, 2011, may come to mark the start of a new phase in Japanese history, when the
Japanese began to regain the self-confidence and intellectual openness toward the outside
world for which for so many decades they were well known and respected. In this new phase
Japan will catch the next globalization train and prove a forceful power in meeting tomorrow's
global challenges.
Jean-Pierre Lehmann is professor of international political economy and founding director of
the Evian Group at IMD, an international business school based in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Dominique Turpin is the Nestlé professor and president of IMD. They both wrote their Ph.D.
theses on Japan-related themes and have published widely on the country.
http://www.forbes.com/2011/04/01/japan-earthquake-tsunami-economy-recoveryleadership-managing-future.html
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Online article
Australia
April 8, 2011
CMOs and Twitter: have they joined the celebration?
By William Smit, research fellow, IMD business school
Twitter users now send more than 140 million Tweets a day. With more than 20% of
the tweets being related to products and/or brands, this means that every day 28
million tweets potentially concern your brand or company. The microblogging sphere
has undeniably become a worthwhile place for listening to customers and potentially
influencing perceptions, attitudes and behaviors by engaging into their conversations.
The relevant question has therefore moved from if marketers should get involved to
how they should deal with it. Not only Twitter, but social media in general poses
novel challenges to brand building and management. Basically it comes down to the
fact that control is handed over to consumers. The times in which the firm controls
what the brand stands for are gone. Consumers own the brand. Having lost control,
today’s competition necessitates that brands learn to respond more quickly. It would
make sense that marketers keep their own fingers on the pulse of a dynamic and
vast media space like Twitter, and follow sound marketing advice: listen, listen, listen!
Doing so enables marketers to learn first-hand about what customers are saying
about brands and competitors. Yet is there something else that can be done? If so,
what should be done?
What are CMOs of the leading brands doing? As Twitter recently celebrated its fifth
birthday, have they joined in the celebrations? Are they even on Twitter? If so, how
often do they tweet? And what do they tweet? We systematically examined CMO’s
Twitter presence of Interbrand’s 25 most valuable global brands. Of the top 25, 17
brands have assigned a CMO. Only half of them have a clearly identifiable Twitter
account.
Very different Twitter styles
It seems that the nine top brand CMOs active on Twitter have not found one single
right answer. They have very different tweeting styles. On one extreme of the
spectrum are Joseph Tripodi from the world’s largest brand Coca Cola, Lorraine
Twohill from Google, Jerri DeVard from Nokia and Marc Pritchard from P&G. They
have an account, but have not tweeted and as a consequence their number of
followers is limited. It could be that they only use it for listening.
On the opposite end of the spectrum we find CMOs with a more active style, like
IBM’s Jon Iwata, GE’s Beth Comstock and HP’s brand-new CMO Bill Wohl. Jon’s
tweets come in waves. Days pass without a tweet from him, and then there are four
to five days a months on which he sends out larger numbers of messages. The
topics of all his tweets are IBM-related: announcements about the opening of an IBM
branch, strategic priorities and investor briefings.
More regular and frequent are @bethcomstock and @bill_wohlHP’s tweeting
behaviors. Beth is GE’s longtime CMO and she regularly shares her experiences
about events and customer visits. Bill was recently appointed to the position after he
joined from SAP. He immediately took it on himself to start tweeting and in fact has
done so 20 times in the last 15 days. His content is a mix of company press releases
and personal experiences.
Even more personal and experimental is Barry Judge from US retailer Best Buy
(@BestBuyCMO, http://barryjudge.com). Barry sends two / three tweets every day
mixing work with play. A striking example is: “Trying this to see what happens. I have
a room at Little Nell's in Aspen from Mar 23-27. I can't go. Anyone know how I can
find a renter?”
Your own voice on Twitter
Within this spectrum, it is key to find your own voice. It is important to determine what
style is appropriate for you and your brand. There are a couple of issues needed to
take into consideration. A more active tweeting style has both benefits and
drawbacks. It is up to you to weigh them.
Benefits of active tweeting are informational and reputation building:
Quicker speed in customer sensing – Twitter is one of the fastest ways to identify
what is happening with your brand
Less dependent on internal customer insight sources. Having your own direct
channel of information disciplines the insights that company channels provide you
with.
More approachable – opening a Twitter account gives external audiences the
possibility to contact you instantly. At least it shows that you and your brand are open
for feedback and sends a signal that you personally care.
Drawbacks of active tweeting are time-consuming, distraction and confusion:
More distraction – the content of many tweets, according to research firm Pear
Analytics, is 40% filled with pointless babble, plus much of it is conversational and
self-promotion. If “lists” are not carefully designed and “Whom-to-follow” is not well
done, it is difficult to filter what is important. Then tweeting creates a lot of useless
distraction.
More confusion – personal branding can get confused with company branding. : It is
dangerous to post a disclaimer that says: “what I post here is really my opinion, and
not necessarily the opinion of my company”
If you do not want to make this trade-off, is it still an option to just open a Twitter
account and then only listen? No, not really, because remaining a wall-flower may
violate a critical communication law formulated by Austrian-American psychologist
and philosopher Paul Watzlawick who claimed that: “no one cannot communicate.”
Meaning that staying silent on Twitter also sends a signal. A signal of silent presence
may well be interpreted as ambiguous and could easily be explained as being
“uninterested”, “too busy with other things than with customers”, or even “arrogant.” It
is up to you, and your company to weigh the pros and cons of a more active Twitter
style.
Willem Smit is a research fellow at IMD, the leading global business school based in
Lausanne, Switzerland. He can be followed on Twitter at @WillemSmit.
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(http://aeiou.expresso.pt/a-troika-quer-tornar-portugal-um-exemplo=f643390)
A troika quer tornar Portugal um exemplo
Uma mesa redonda virtual com três economistas portugueses "lá fora" que
discutem o "resgate" de Portugal, o caso da Islândia e o risco de reestruturação da
dívida. E dão 'dicas' aos negociadores portugueses
Jorge Nascimento Rodrigues (www.expresso.pt)
22:59 Terça feira, 12 de abril de 2011
As negociações vão ser duras. O país vai pagar "um preço alto" para funcionar como uma
"vacina", espera a troika da Comissão Europeia/Banco Central Europeu/Fundo Monetário
Internacional. Mas apesar do esforço que vai ser feito pelo país, alguns dos economistas
portugueses radicados no estrangeiro ouvidos pelo Expresso inclinam-se para a
probabilidade de uma situação em que acabaremos por ter de realizar uma reestruturação da
dívida. Talvez em 2013 ou 2024, quando a zona euro se inclinar para essa opção. Espera-se
que seja feita de "um modo civilizado" e de preferência em conjunto com a Grécia e Irlanda.
Todos sugerem, no entanto, um conjunto de "dicas" para os negociadores portugueses do
atual pacote de resgate.
O Expresso ouviu Nuno Fernandes, professor de Finanças no IMD na Suíça e fellow do
Banco Central Europeu, Nuno Garoupa, professor de Direito e Economia na Universidade
de Illinois, nos Estados Unidos, e Álvaro Santos Pereira, professor de Desenvolvimento
Económico e Política Económica na Universidade Simon Fraser, em Vancouver, no Canadá.
DESTAQUES
" Dadas as condições a que chegámos nos últimos meses, o pedido de auxílio foi a solução
mais adequada. Um default - total ou parcial - seria impensável nos dias de hoje." (Nuno
Fernandes)
"Enquanto estivermos dentro da União Económica e Monetária temos de fazer o que a União
quer." (Nuno Garoupa)
"O modelo de default de 1892 não é muito abonatório para solucionar os nossos problemas
atuais. Isto não quer dizer que não vai haver reestruturação ou renegociação das nossas
dívidas. Sinceramente, acho que há uma grande probabilidade que tal venha a acontecer."
(Álvaro Santos Pereira)
"Neste momento, e tendo em vista o potencial contágio a Espanha, a posição da
CE/BCE/FMI será de força total, e de sinalizar claramente que os países que recorram a este
mecanismo de "ajuda" terão de pagar um preço alto" (Nuno Fernandes)
"A reestruturação da nossa dívida é inevitável em 2013 ou 2014, a meu ver, quando a zona
euro decidir politicamente essa opção, ou seja, quando os bancos alemães e franceses
deixarem de estar expostos às dívidas grega, irlandesa e portuguesa" (Nuno Garoupa)
" O problema é que, paradoxalmente, e tal como ocorreu com a Grécia, os nossos parceiros
europeus parecem estar mais dispostos a castigarem-nos pelas irresponsabilidades dos
últimos anos do que o próprio FMI. É a solidariedade europeia no seu melhor" (Álvaro Santos
Pereira)
RESGATE OU REESTRUTURAÇÂO DA DÍVIDA
Q: A solução seguida em 1892 de default parcial e negociação com os credores teria
condições de vingar nos tempos atuais ou o pedido de resgate atual foi a solução mais
adequada?
Nuno Fernandes: Dadas as condições a que chegámos nos últimos meses, o pedido de
auxílio foi a solução mais adequada. Um default - total ou parcial - seria impensável nos dias
de hoje. É possível? Tecnicamente sim. Mas traria custos exorbitantes para o País. Os
custos seriam as penalizações impostas pelos credores, e que levariam com grande
probabilidade a uma crise financeira de proporções gigantescas, levando inclusive à falência
da maioria dos bancos nacionais. É preciso não esquecer, que grande parte do
financiamento da divida publica tem vindo a ser efetuado pelos bancos nacionais. Um
incumprimento, seria uma desvalorização ou evaporação dos ativos destes bancos,
tornando-os, na maior parte dos casos, insolventes. Para além disso, o país, e as suas
empresas (financeiras ou não financeiras), perderiam o acesso aos mercados financeiros, o
que seria uma vez mais, desastroso, em particular dado o crescimento internacional de
várias das nossas empresas. As nossas exportações seriam afetadas negativamente, e o
nosso défice da balança comercial seria ainda maior do que o atual. Os futuros custos de
financiamento, uma vez reaberto o mercado financeiro, seriam também superiores numa
situação de default.
Nuno Garoupa: Era uma solução tecnicamente possível, de facto. Mas politicamente
afastada. Enquanto estivermos dentro da União Económica e Monetária temos de fazer o
que a União quer. E, neste momento, o default parcial ou total não é uma solução admissível
no contexto da zona euro. A solução encontrada é, por isso, a mais adequada no contexto
das limitações que nos são impostas pela zona euro.
Álvaro Santos Pereira: Mesmo que cheguemos a uma situação de incumprimento ou de
reestruturação da dívida pública, espero bem que não tenhamos de cair nos mesmos moldes
que caracterizaram a bancarrota parcial do país em 1892. É que há reestruturações de dívida
mais e menos civilizadas e a de 1892 não foi muito abonatória para o nosso país, pois nós
declarámos o default parcial sem antes termos tentado negociar com os nossos credores - a
negociação, recorde-se, só foi acordada em 1902. O processo foi muito tumultuoso e fez com
que ficássemos fora dos mercados da dívida durante várias décadas. Por isso, o modelo de
1892 não é muito abonatório para solucionar os nossos problemas atuais. Isto não quer dizer
que não vai haver reestruturação ou renegociação das nossas dívidas. Sinceramente, acho
que há uma grande probabilidade que tal venha a acontecer. Aliás, essa é uma das
conclusões do meu novo livro - "Portugal na Hora da Verdade", que será publicado pela
Gradiva no final deste mês - , onde analisei com grande profundidade a questão do
endividamento nacional. Entre outras coisas, o livro mostra que as dívidas da economia
nacional são de tal modo elevadas que será muito difícil evitar uma reestruturação a curto ou
médio prazo. Porém, terá de ser devidamente negociada com os nossos credores e com os
nossos parceiros europeus e não deve ser feita de forma "menos civilizada", como aconteceu
em 1892.
Q: As opiniões que começam a ouvir-se mesmo no seio do Ecofin sobre a probabilidade de
vir a admitir-se uma re-estruturação da dívida grega poderão, por isso, ter impacto nas
questões relativas à Irlanda e Portugal?
Nuno Garoupa: A reestruturação da nossa dívida é inevitável em 2013 ou 2014, a meu ver,
quando a zona euro decidir politicamente essa opção, ou seja, quando os bancos alemães e
franceses deixarem de estar expostos às dívidas grega, irlandesa e portuguesa. Haverá,
então, a reforma pretendida do Tratado de Lisboa e seguir-se-ão as reestruturações de
dívida. É claro que isso será nos moldes impostos pela zona euro, possivelmente num
sentido favorável aos credores e sem ter em conta o interesse português.
Álvaro Santos Pereira: Certamente que sim. Penso mesmo que se houver uma
reestruturação da dívida grega, é provável que faça todo o sentido que se discuta uma
reestruturação das dívidas irlandesa e portuguesa. A haver uma reestruturação da dívida
nacional, teríamos bastante a ganhar se o fizéssemos ao mesmo tempo que a Grécia e a
Irlanda, pois poderíamos então negociar condições mais vantajosas com os credores.
O EFEITO DO "NÃO" ISLANDÊS
Q: O segundo voto "não" na Islândia este fim de semana sobre a questão da resolução do
assunto pendente do Icesave pode ter implicações na zona euro em termos de atitude dos
eleitorados e de posição de outros países, como o caso dos finlandeses que vão a votos
proximamente?
Nuno Fernandes: Seguramente que os credores da Islândia não gostaram do voto dos
islandeses. Mas as situações não são minimamente comparáveis. No caso da Islândia, o
problema reside num banco (Icebank), que, após anos de especulação desenfreada e gestão
irresponsável, entrou em falência. Grande parte dos seus depositantes é formada por
cidadãos da Holanda e Reino Unido, que não deveriam esperar obter taxas de juro elevadas
- sem qualquer comparação com outros bancos na Zona Euro - sem correrem qualquer risco.
O voto "Não" islandês foi uma declaração do povo islandês, de não subsidiação pelos
contribuintes islandeses de um banco falido. Consideraram os eleitores não ser justo pagar o país - um custo elevado, pela má gestão de um banco privado. No entanto, e no
seguimento deste voto islandês, Portugal vai servir de exemplo. A Europa não se pode
permitir outro resgate. Neste momento, e tendo em vista o potencial contágio a Espanha, a
posição da CE/BCE/FMI será de força total, e de sinalizar claramente que os países que
recorram a este mecanismo de "ajuda" terão de pagar um preço alto. Contudo, penso que
existem condições para sairmos mais fortes desta negociação do que estamos atualmente, e
finalmente vermos alguma luz ao fundo do túnel.
Nuno Garoupa: Sim, pode ter. Mas Portugal não tem outra via enquanto for parte da zona
euro e estiver sujeito ao Tratado de Lisboa. A zona euro não tem qualquer necessidade, nem
economia nem política, de proteger os interesses portugueses, mas sim os das economias
do Norte europeu. Portanto não há alternativa a pagar a fatura pesada e os juros da
irresponsabilidade da nossa classe política. O futuro económico de Portugal não tem outro
cenário a médio prazo que não seja a estagnação e empobrecimento relativo.
Álvaro Santos Pereira: Talvez. Mas mais do que a Islândia, será extremamente importante
o que irá acontecer à Grécia e à Irlanda (e, como é óbvio, Portugal) nos próximos meses.
CONSELHOS PARA NEGOCIAR COM A TROIKA
Q: Qual o principal conselho que daria aos negociadores em Lisboa que vão enfrentar a
troika CE/BCE/FMI?
Nuno Fernandes: Sugiro que olhem para esta negociação como uma oportunidade.
Partimos para a negociação numa posição difícil, de um pedido de "ajuda", e sujeito a uma
série de duras contrapartidas. É certo que a posição da CE/BCE/FMI vai ser de impor
condições leoninas, e Portugal vai servir de exemplo para outros países, como já o referi.
Como em qualquer negociação, o sucesso atinge-se se, no final, resultar uma situação winwin, ou seja, em que ambas as partes sairão melhor do que quando entraram. Parece difícil,
mas não é impossível. Para começar, é preciso ter vários pontos de negociação, e não focar
tudo num único ponto ou valor. Também é necessário surpreender a outra parte,
apresentando voluntariamente concessões, ou seja, coisas de que estamos dispostos a
abdicar.
Nuno Garoupa: Objetividade, transparência, rigor e sentido comum que faltou nos últimos
seis anos. Lamento que seja a mesma equipa económica que nos trouxe até aqui a fazê-lo.
Álvaro Santos Pereira: Apesar de partirmos para as negociações numa situação muito
delicada, penso que ainda há margem de manobra para conseguirmos condições melhores
do que as que foram alcançadas pela Irlanda. Aliás, a porta para que tal aconteça já foi
aberta por Olivier Blanchard, economista-chefe do FMI, que já defendeu a necessidade de o
resgate português ter juros mais baixos do que os que foram oferecidos à Irlanda, bem como
prazos de pagamento mais dilatados. Esperemos assim que o FMI leve a sua avante. O
problema é que, paradoxalmente, e tal como ocorreu com a Grécia, os nossos parceiros
europeus parecem estar mais dispostos a castigarem-nos pelas irresponsabilidades dos
últimos anos do que o próprio FMI. É a solidariedade europeia no seu melhor. Esperemos
que tal não aconteça, pois ninguém beneficiaria com essa situação
Q: O que é fundamental garantir?
Nuno Fernandes: É fundamental que o resultado não seja um pacote de medidas que
estrangule completamente a economia, e mine as oportunidades do setor privado de liderar
uma recuperação sustentada da economia. Ambas as partes devem ter isto claro. Assim,
qualquer aumento de impostos deverá ser rejeitado pelos nossos negociadores. O aumento
de impostos, por exemplo o IVA, é a solução simples, e rápida para melhorar as contas
públicas no curto prazo. O problema é o estrangulamento do consumo (ainda maior) que
resulta deste aumento do IVA: como consequência poderemos continuar numa recessão
prolongada se este facilitismo for o caminho seguido. Os nossos negociadores devem ter a
capacidade (e argumentos) de transmitir esta mensagem: o estrangulamento da economia,
que vem já acontecendo há 10 anos (ao contrário da Irlanda, Espanha e Grécia, que
registaram até ao rebentar da crise elevadas taxas de crescimento) não ajuda a melhorar a
situação das finanças públicas de uma forma estrutural. Se a recessão continuar, o PIB não
aumenta, e o valor da divida e seus encargos continuarão a representar uma fatia importante
do Orçamento de Estado. Para que o não aumento de impostos seja aceite pela comissão de
negociadores da CE/BCE/FMI, é fundamental dar-lhes algo mais do que eles estão a pedir
neste caso. Devem assim, utilizar esta negociação como uma oportunidade de reformatar o
país, quebrar com as transferências para grupos de interesse instalados, focar as prioridades
na competitividade dos nossos produtos e serviços, e acabar com o papel asfixiante do
Estado na economia.
Álvaro Santos Pereira: É importante que os nossos negociadores não cedam em demasia
ou que não aceitem todas e quaisquer condições que nos forem propostas, principalmente se
tivermos a "compreensão" do FMI. Esperemos que os nossos negociadores sejam firmes, e
que saibam negociar um pacote que não seja ruinoso para Portugal. Acima de tudo, é
preciso conseguir que a austeridade seja principalmente concretizada no Estado (com um
programa de grande 'emagrecimento' estatal nos próximos anos) e não contra as famílias e
contra as empresas. O programa de austeridade também não deveria impedir o
estabelecimento de uma nova política de competitividade, nem comprometer
irremediavelmente uma retoma económica.
DICAS AOS NEGOCIADORES
"Para começar, é preciso ter vários pontos de negociação, e não focar tudo num único ponto
ou valor. Também é necessário surpreender a outra parte, apresentando voluntariamente
concessões, ou seja, coisas de que estamos dispostos a abdicar." (Nuno Fernandes)
"Objetividade, transparência, rigor e sentido comum que faltou nos últimos seis anos" (Nuno
Garoupa)
"É importante que os nossos negociadores não cedam em demasia ou que não aceitem
todas e quaisquer condições que nos forem propostas, principalmente se tivermos a
"compreensão" do FMI." (Álvaro Santos Pereira)
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April 12, 2011
B-School Startups: Connecting with
the Poken
IMD MBA entrepreneur Stephane Doutriaux
develops a networking device that eliminates
the need for business cards
By Sommer Saadi
When Stephane Doutriaux began the MBA program at IMD in 2007, he was looking forward
to meeting his classmates, but not keeping track of their business cards. So just after starting
school, he came up with the idea for Poken, a tool that makes exchanging contact information
a lot easier and a lot more fun. "The Poken is like a fashion accessory," Doutriaux says. "It
makes networking entertaining and that's a really big part of being successful at it."
Stephane Doutriaux came up with the idea for Poken, a device for exchanging contact
information, while a student at the Swiss business school IMD
The small device that resembles a typical USB stick comes in two styles: the playful and
unconventionally designed pokenSpark and the more understated pokenPulse. When the
four-fingered hand logos of two Pokens are held together momentarily, they exchange an
encrypted code that contains a person's digital information. Doutriaux calls the action a "High
Four." Then, when the Poken is plugged into the USB port of a computer, it connects to the
profiles of all the people the device came in contact with. Poken owners sign up for the
pokenHub, which is a website that organizes contacts in a time line. Profiles on the time line
include links to social networks that users opt to incorporate.
The system allows people to put a name to a face easily and keep up with the social
happenings of new contacts without having to hunt for those profiles separately. Poken
profiles can be linked to accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, among other sites.
"People remember they met someone two weeks ago and maybe where they met them or
what they look like," Doutriaux says, "but they can't always connect those things to their name
or company. Poken solves that problem."
Trade-Show Distribution
A profile does not have to be built before using the Poken, so the device has been popular at
corporate conferences and trade shows where mass amounts of Pokens are distributed.
People at the events can bump the devices and exchange information immediately. Until a
user has registered, the profile appears blank, but it's immediately updated when a user logs
on and chooses what information they want to automatically appear.
Doutriaux started working on his company in the middle of his one-year MBA program, first
applying for patents and then hiring contractors. In most classes he was able to work on the
Poken business model as part of his assignments. "Stephane came to class with the seed of
an idea and spent the whole year begging for feedback and progressively refining it," says
Benoit Leleux, professor of entrepreneurship and finance at IMD.
After Doutriaux graduated, Leleux continued to support him by assigning students from the
2008 IMD class to a project startup team for Poken. The first round of capital that was raised
for Poken—$600,000, Doutriaux estimates—included investments from Leleux and other IMD
faculty members as well as classmates from IMD.
Developing Ideas at IMD
Doutriaux says he did have some difficulties balancing starting a business and going to
school full time, especially at IMD where an entire MBA education is packed into one calendar
year. But it also offered him the opportunity to bounce ideas off his peers and gather
customer feedback in the classroom. "There was so much freedom to explore different ideas,"
Doutriaux says, "which is something you can't as easily do in a workplace."
The company was incorporated in December 2007, and in February 2008, just after
graduation, Doutriaux hired the first full-time employee. Poken now has 29 employees
between its headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, an engineering office in Romania, and a
small team in the U.S. The pokenSpark, a basic, no-frills version that holds up to 64 contacts,
sells for $19.95, while the pokenPulse, which offers a sleek design and 2GB of storage space
for both contacts and important files, sells for $34.95.
Expansion plans include branching out into mobile apps and making Poken user profiles more
expansive, and Doutriaux is currently reaching out for another round of funding from venture
capitalists. In the meantime, his focus remains on making the networking process efficient
and exciting. "I wanted to create a tech product that wasn't focused on just the technology but
instead the user experience," Doutriaux says. "And that is what makes the Poken special—it
has character."
Editor's Note: This story is part of Bloomberg Businessweek's occasional series on the
world of startups. The series focuses on MBAs and undergraduate business students who
developed their ideas or launched their businesses while still in school and the many ways
their schools helped them get their new ventures off the ground. For a look at some business
students trying to build their own businesses, check out our slide show.
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April 15, 2011
India Journal: Is India’s Economic Growth Socially Sustainable?
By Jean-Pierre Lehmann
In seeking to determine what the 21st century may look like, India matters arguably
more than any other nation. For several reasons.
The first and most obvious is that it will be
the most populous nation, with a
population expected to reach 1.5 billion in
2030 and 1.6 billion two decades later.
Indians will comprise 20% of humanity. If
India “succeeds” in raising the great
majority above the poverty level, the
implications will be enormous. If India
“fails” and maintains the current level of
50% of the population living in poverty, the
social and political implications may well
be quite dramatic – for India and for the world.
India also counts enormously in that it is not just a populous nation, but also a
democracy, with key humanistic values laid out as its core principles by its founding
fathers, such as Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore. If the Indian rule of lawbased liberal democratic “model” fails, will this mean an enduring victory for the
arbitrary and authoritarian Chinese “model”?
Until the recent past, India was little more than a marginal player from a global
economic perspective, even if Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi may have been in
the geopolitical limelight. It experienced an anaemic rate of growth – especially
compared with its neighboring East Asian “miracle” economies – and was insulated
from international business: very little trade, hardly any foreign investment, inward or
outward.
Today, the story is quite different. To borrow from the title of a book by Indian thought
leader Gurcharan Das, following radical reforms undertaken in the early 1990s India
became “unbound.” In the last two decades, India’s growth rate has been second
only to China’s among major economies; it has become a key actor in global
economic governance, notably as a strong force in the G20; a number of its firms
have gone global big-time – the Tata Group, for instance, is the U.K.’s largest
manufacturing employer – and foreign firms, especially in IT, have made significant
investments in India.
So is the India of today very different from — and a great improvement on — the
India of yesterday? The answer: It depends where you look. The economic data are
indeed impressive. On the other hand, the panorama drawn from social indicators is
pretty deplorable. These are well known and need no repeating here, except to
highlight that the greatest blight on India is the very high rates of female illiteracy and
child mortality – the two, of course, being closely correlated.
The scorecard today is that India is succeeding brilliantly and failing miserably.
These developments have caused a good deal of thinking, soul-searching and very
lively debate. This is, after all, the land of the “argumentative Indian.” One of the
liveliest debates was sparked off following the sharp criticism levelled at the Indian
government by economist and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen over its obsession with
faster growth and the race with China at the expense of social development.
This was countered by University of Columbia economics professor Jagdish
Bhagwati who argued that high growth generates better jobs and the income for
government to invest in social development programs. Some 30 Indian and foreign
intellectuals got involved in an online debate along these lines monitored by the
Indian NGO CUTS; it was fascinating to follow.
The fact is that high growth does not seem to have made India a happier or more
egalitarian place. There is a growing social backlash. Youth unemployment and
disaffection are very high. There is already a strong presence in several provinces of
the extreme political-guerrilla movement known as the Naxalites.
The main problem in the Bhagwati growth perspective is that if growth provides jobs,
as indeed it does, society has to be geared in such a fashion that individuals have
the means and skills to acquire them.
While India’s growth over the last couple of decades has been only marginally lower
than China’s, the number of people lifted from poverty in India pales into comparison
with its Asian neighbor: 70 million for India; 400 million for China. Prof. Sen pointed
out in his book, “Development as Freedom,” that the fruits and opportunities of
freedom – including freedom to work – can only be had if people have the most basic
skills of literacy and numeracy; something hundreds of millions of Indians lack.
Though it is generally held that while primary education in India stinks, higher
education is brilliant, this is not entirely true. The top elitist institutions are second to
none, for sure, but many – in fact the majority – who graduate from mainstream
institutions of “higher learning” are considered unemployable.
Growth has allowed the rich to acquire more private gains, but has hampered the
poor by neglecting social public goods, including the very basics of health, nutrition,
education and shelter.
Pallavi Aiyar, author of “Smoke and Mirrors: An Experience of China,” wrote that if
you are born rich, choose India, if you are born poor, choose China – because of
higher levels of basic education in China, there is correspondingly much more social
mobility. Indian thought leaders also bemoan the fact that contemporary Indian
society suffers from a compassion deficit and widespread insensitivity, especially
among the new brash business and finance elites.
The situation is grim; as is the outlook if present trends continue.
There is reason to hope, however, that trends will be reversed. Many business and
thought leaders have determined that effective emergency measures are needed.
There are also some hopeful signs in the provinces. Bihar, which has been one of the
most backward, poor, crime-infested and corrupt states of India, had elections in
November which resulted in the landslide victory of a pro-development coalition
under the aegis of one of the few respected politicians in India, Nitish Kumar.
When Gandhi was asked what he thought of Western civilization he famously replied
that it sounded like a good idea. The same could be said of Indian civilization. It is
high time to put the great idea into practice. India provides the biggest challenge and
hope for the 21st century global era. It must not fail.
–Jean-Pierre Lehmann is a professor at IMD and founding director of The Evian
Group @ IMD. Since 2008, the Evian Group has been working with Indian industry
and government on the challenge of globalization and inclusive growth, including a
book to be published in 2012.
Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved
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(http://www.ejecutivos.es/noticia.asp?ref=20196)
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Guest Column
Great entrepreneurs: born
or built?
MICHAEL WADE and MARK
ARNASON
Published Wednesday, Apr. 20, 2011 10:10AM
EDT
What makes a great entrepreneur? Is running a successful business a skill you’re born with, or is
it one you can learn? Over the course of three columns, Your Business guest contributors
Michael Wade and Mark Arnason will attempt to answer those questions. Here is part one:
Are great entrepreneurs born or are they built?
It’s a critical question for any aspiring owner who wants to start a business.
The process theoretically goes something like this: An entrepreneur has a brilliant idea, writes a
business plan, gets start-up funding, puts together a team, creates a product or service, and sells
out to a Fortune 500 firm. It sounds logical, but reality paints a different picture.
Let’s start with the brilliant idea. There are many stories floating around about entrepreneurs
whose empires were sparked by blinding insights that occurred during some mundane activity,
like waiting for a bus or taking a shower. We call this the myth of the epiphany, and the truth
usually differs from the myth.
Most great ideas start out extremely rough and half-baked, and they are only chiselled into
greatness over time. Howard Schultz’s flash of insight was to bring Italian coffee bistros to the
United States, but in his original concept, customers stood or perched on stools (there were no
chairs), listened to opera music, and were served by baristas wearing bow-ties – certainly not
what a customer would expect to experience in today’s Starbucks.
Jeff Bezos had a good idea -- selling books online -- but his real insight was turning his store into
a global marketplace for other people to sell their goods, even when they competed with
Amazon.com’s products.
Ideas are important but they are not pivotal. We have conducted many brainstorming sessions in
our classes, and the results have been intriguing. Teams of students and executives consistently
come up with more than 100 start-up ideas in five or 10 minutes. Some of the ideas are absurd,
but at least a dozen really good ones are generated each time we run the exercise. Ideas, as they
say, are cheap.
Most great entrepreneurial ventures begin with a problem, which could be an unmet need, a
bottleneck in a process, or an inconvenience. The idea is simply a solution for how to solve the
problem. MIT professor Eric von Hippel found that more new profitable lines of business came
from customer complaints than from research and development departments.
A recent study by Duke University Professor Vivek Wadhwa examined scores of personal and
professional characteristics of successful entrepreneurs and found one common element: a
university education. It didn’t seem to matter what degree was awarded, or what school it came
from.
Another study, by IMD professor Stuart Read and colleagues, suggested it is more important to
look at how successful entrepreneurs behave (what they do) than to look at their characteristics
(who they are).
According to this research, conducted at the Switzerland-based business school,
successful entrepreneurs consistently follow four basic principles:
1. They start with what they have: who they are, what they know, and who they know. They
typically don’t worry about raising millions in seed capital or trying to figure out something
new. They start close to home with something they already know and understand.
2. They set an affordable loss. This means that they are more concerned with how much
they can afford to lose than they are with how much they can make. Most entrepreneurs
only quit their day jobs after a venture has been in operation for longer than a year,
sometimes much longer. In fact, surveys of the INC 500, the 500 fastest-growing private
companies in the United States each year, suggest that 18 months is the typical length of
time entrepreneurs take before they establish their first offices. We have personally seen
this in our own interactions with hundreds of founding CEOs over the past 15 years.
3. They are great at taking advantage of unexpected situations. Most management
textbooks regard surprises as anomalies that should be avoided or minimized.
Successful entrepreneurs, by contrast, are able to adjust their strategies on the fly.
4. They are skilled at forming partnerships. Despite what you may think, successful
entrepreneurs do not stay at home tinkering with their inventions all day long – they
cannot generate sales this way. Instead, they spend a great deal of time developing and
nurturing a steady stream of formal and informal partnerships.
The entrepreneurs in Prof. Read’s study are really successful – they have all built at least two
ventures that have grossed $100 million (U.S.) or more. They are adaptive thinkers who are
willing to adjust and modify their strategies based on constant feedback from a shifting set of
partners. The entrepreneurs understand that failure is a part of building and developing ideas,
and they are willing to switch gears when better opportunities arise.
This differs radically from the guidelines set out in most entrepreneurship textbooks.
Good entrepreneurs are talented at recognizing problems, but their first ideas are usually not very
good. Lucky for them, most are also tenacious – they don’t give up easily. Ideas get tested,
prototyped, revised, stretched, shared, prototyped again, and then retested until they evolve into
a workable form. This process is the central concept behind a new field of entrepreneurial
research called effectuation, the core principles of which are about adapting your business model
to opportunities as they evolve.
April 21: Another icon of accepted entrepreneurial wisdom – the business plan.
Special to The Globe and Mail
Michael Wade is professor of innovation and strategic information management at IMD in
Switzerland. Prior to that he was academic director of the Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA
Program at York University in Toronto.
Mark Arnason is senior vice president of product development and strategy at Longview Solutions
and he has taught entrepreneurship for the past 15 years as an adjunct professor at the
University of Waterloo.
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Guest Column
Business plans don’t help in early
stages
MICHAEL WADE and MARK ARNASON
Published Thursday, Apr. 21, 2011 6:00AM EDT
Michael Wade and Mark Arnason will attempt to answer those questions. Part two takes aim at a
key element of conventional wisdom around entrepreneurship – the business plan:
It’s true that a good business plan can anchor an entrepreneurial venture.
Once a company has been operational for some time, it has a well-defined value proposition, and
it generates positive cash flow, a plan can help attract the necessary growth financing. The
problem is that business plans are typically not helpful when ventures are in their early, formative
stages.
An anchor is designed to keep you in one place, which is precisely what an entrepreneur should
not do. The usefulness of a business plan diminishes precipitously as an entrepreneur moves
away from the original idea. In most cases, the plan is only valid when it is written.
Pierre Omydar, the founder of eBay, credits the fact he didn’t have a business plan for the
success of the company: “EBay was open to organic growth – it could achieve a certain degree of
self-organization. So I guess what I’m trying to tell you is: Whatever future you’re building … don’t
try to program everything.
“Five-year plans never worked for the Soviet Union – in fact, if anything, central planning
contributed to its fall. Chances are central planning won’t work any better for any of us.”
Surveys from the Inc. 500 suggest fewer than 25 per cent of successful entrepreneurs create
business plans at start-up. Those that do write them will generally stick to informal “back of the
napkin” types of documents. Our own experience with high-tech founders over 15 years confirms
this.
But everyone from bankers and accountants to business professors and consultants say
business plans are necessary. The fact is, you only need a business plan for one reason: to get
financing.
This brings up another important misconception. Financing is not typically a part of the early
stage of a company’s creation. Banks fund assets, not ideas, and venture capitalists fund
momentum and sales.
Unless you have a proven entrepreneurial track record, or you have created some kind of unique
scientific breakthrough that has huge commercial potential, it will be difficult to secure financing
outside a network of friends, family, and your own sweat equity.
There are numerous examples of ventures that start with minimal financing. Dell and Subway
were both launched with less than $1,000 (U.S.). In fact, 98 per cent of new ventures start with no
venture capital or angel financing at all. Further, surveys from the Inc. 500 rank credit cards
ahead of VC funding as a source of start-up capital.
All the millions that dot.com firms such as pets.com received in the early 2000s didn’t put them on
the pathway to success. In fact, it probably hurt them. With money comes the temptation to spend
it – on offices, people, advertising, and infrastructure – all of which takes an entrepreneur’s eyes
off what is really important. Things like making sales, building networks, and improving product or
services.
Business plans can be very useful in helping an entrepreneur think through the full implications of
an idea. And they definitely come in handy when the time comes to pursue funding. But their
negative potential as ‘anchors’ in a particular place and time mostly outstrips their benefit –
particularly in the early stages.
April 22: Embrace the unexpected.
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April 22, 2011
Guest Column
Good news for aspiring
entrepreneurs
MICHAEL WADE and MARK ARNASON
Published Friday, Apr. 22, 2011 6:00AM EDT
Michael Wade and Mark Arnason will attempt to answer those questions. Part three is about
embracing the unexpected:
What makes an entrepreneur tick?
We have argued that the image of the visionary entrepreneur who builds an empire from the seed
of a brilliant and fully formed idea is mostly myth.
At the same time, the loose and flexible ideas of an entrepreneur should not be constrained by a
business plan.
Given these insights, we believe entrepreneurs need to leverage customers and partners to solve
the financing paradox, and to embrace both positive and negative surprises.
Let’s start with the financing paradox. Banks fund assets, not ideas, and venture capitalists fund
sales and momentum. So how should entrepreneurs break through the catch-22 of needing
funding to survive the early stages, and manage to get to the point where they can raise it
externally?
Our experience suggests that when personal-network financing runs out, successful
entrepreneurs turn to their customers for additional sources of knowledge and capital. In fact,
revenue from early customers has played a significant role in the growth of more than 60 per cent
of the high-profile companies we’ve looked at over the past 15 years. In the case of business-tobusiness companies, the number is closer to 100 per cent.
Toronto-based Guestlogix is a global leader in on-board retailing solutions for the airline industry,
and it was No. 9 on last year’s Deloitte Fast 50. A pivotal moment in the company’s history came
when it signed its first major customer, American Airlines. The partnership gave Guestlogix a
monthly revenue stream, and allowed it to refine its product, which soon attracted the attention of
other major U.S. carriers.
Another example is Janna Systems, the Toronto-based software company that was bought by
Siebel in 1999, for more than $1.7 billion. Janna got started with a two-year consulting contract
for its core team of founders, the proceeds of which were used to fund development of the initial
version of its software. Longview Solutions grew in a similar way.
RIM’s launch of the original Blackberry two-way pager was built on the strength of an agreement
with Bell South. After years of experimenting with product ideas around telecommunications
device design and engineering around power consumption, RIM’s founders finally found the killer
app with the Blackberry.
Yet it was the partnership with BellSouth that led to its success, since it validated the offering to
other major customers, and gave the company a key source of revenue to fuel future growth.
If given the choice between building a new partnership or improving a product or service,
successful entrepreneurs tend to choose the former.
But funds are only beneficial if they can be used to generate growth and sales, and for this to
happen, an entrepreneur must leverage surprises. The research from IMD’s professor Stuart
Read and his colleagues clearly shows that successful entrepreneurs are masters of managing
the unexpected.
This is not what most of us have been taught in business schools. We are told to explicitly avoid
surprises, to guard and insure against them, and to manage them out of our businesses.
Entrepreneurs, by contrast, are masters at turning unexpected events into sources of advantage.
Guestlogix repositioned its meal-planning software to on-board retailing and shifted into high gear
after the airline industry moved to ‘buy-on-board’ models in the wake of 9/11. Janna completely
repositioned itself, in part due to an unexpected call from a senior executive at a financial
services company, who raved about Janna’s personal contact manager and asked if the company
had an enterprise solution.
In the early 1990s, a young entrepreneur added an extra option to his concert and current events
phone service – something along the lines of “press ‘1’ for concert listings,” “press ‘2’ for
restaurant reviews,” and “press ‘3’ if you want to meet someone.” The next morning, he
discovered that more than 90 per cent of the previous evening’s callers had pressed ‘3,’ and so
Lavalife was born.
Are successful entrepreneurs born or built?
By examining how they operate, our conclusion is clearly the latter.
Successful entrepreneurs tend to utilize a set of skills and practices that help them navigate the
process of shaping and evolving good ideas into winning strategies. They start with the means at
their disposal, actively seek and nurture partnerships, and take advantage of unexpected events.
We are not alone in this conclusion. Back in 1985, the great management thinker Peter Drucker
famously said: “Most of what you hear about entrepreneurship is wrong. It’s not magic; it’s not
mysterious; and it has nothing to do with genes. It’s a discipline and, like any other discipline, it
can be learned.”
For most of us, this is good news. It means that with the right knowledge, skills and passion, any
of us can became successful entrepreneurs.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/your-business/exit/selling-yourbusiness/good-news-for-aspiring-entrepreneurs/article1994833/
Circulation
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April 22, 2011
Circulation
250,000
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April 25 2011
Why Nokia's Collapse Should Scare
Apple
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/04/why_nokias_collapse_should_sca.html?utm_source=feedburn
er&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29
by Patrick Barwise and Seán Meehan
Nokia's inability to field a credible response to the launch of the iPhone in 2007 and
Google's Android operating system in 2008 has precipitated a freefall in its share
price. Today, Apple is riding high, making this the perfect time for it — and every
successful company — to reflect on Nokia's fall and ensure that they don't suffer the
same fate.
Not so long ago, Nokia was the disrupter. In 1994, the dominant global provider of
mobile handsets was Motorola: its shares were trading at an all-time high and it was
seen as an outstanding innovator and even described by a senior consultant at A. T.
Kearney as "the best-managed company in the world" — not so different from Apple
today. By 2000, Motorola's global market share had collapsed from 45% to 15%,
while Nokia's had grown to a market-leading 31%. Nokia had won by promising,
communicating, consistently delivering, and relentlessly improving straightforward,
relevant customer benefits, in line with its easily understood brand promise,
"connecting people".
Although Nokia introduced few radical new products, in the 1990s it was a bold,
innovative company in broader business terms — more than most people realise.
Previously a straggling and struggling conglomerate, it bravely focused 100% on
mobile communications, was an early adopter and driver of 2G technology, and
quickly became a recognised world leader in both supply chain management and
brand-building. It was the first handset manufacturer to target the bottom two-thirds of
the global income pyramid as well as the top one-third and among the first to
understand the importance of ease of use, aesthetic product design, and that
handsets were as much lifestyle as technology products.
Motorola missed most of these market trends, was slow to invest in digital (it was a
classic victim of the innovator's dilemma), and dissipated its efforts on a bewildering
array of technologies, product designs, and brand messages. As the failures piled up,
so did the stories of mounting bureaucracy, back-stabbing, and top management
"living in a different world".
Effective execution became harder and harder, creating a vicious cycle of falling
behind in the market, losing money, cancelling projects and shedding staff, all of
which further damaged its ability to execute. Motorola is finally attempting a
comeback with handsets using Google's Android operating system, but is now only a
minor player.
Over time and with success, Nokia too lost some of its ability to stay in touch with,
and adapt early to, market trends. In particular, just as Motorola missed the switch to
digital, Nokia failed to see that the long-heralded mobile internet was now, at last, a
practical option. In 2004, three years before the iPhone, it rejected a proposal to
develop a Nokia online applications store.
Finally, after a wholesale change of top management, Nokia is now responding
vigorously to Apple's and Google's challenge. It is phasing out investment in its own
Symbian operating system and collaborating with Microsoft to try to create a powerful
"third force" in smartphones. Making this work will be hard, not only for technology
and marketing reasons — although the challenges here are huge — but also
because of the disparity in size and culture between Nokia and Microsoft.
Why should Nokia's problems scare Apple, the world's most admired company with a
stellar record of product innovation, design, branding, customer satisfaction, and
business performance ever since Steve Jobs rejoined it in 1997?
The immediate answer — of which Apple is well aware — is that a host of handset
manufacturers using Google's Android operating system are outpacing it in the
smartphone market, threatening to make Android the dominant standard for
application developers, network operators, and consumers.
Less obviously, Apple's success may have left it less open, less sensitive, less
flexible, and less responsive. The signs are there. When iPhone 4 users complained
of poor signal strength, a normally highly tuned-in Steve Jobs responded in a manner
many regarded as ungracious, advising customers to hold the device properly and
offering a very non-Apple 'patch' (a form of a rubber band) to anyone who asked for
one.
There was also widespread shock and disappointment when Jobs announced that
Apple would take a whopping 30% cut of content owners' sales through the iStore
(Google takes no such cut). Apple also insisted that the iStore must be able to offer
any deal publishers offer elsewhere. Further, Apple will not share customer data with
content providers. Such is Apple's market power that, for now, most publishers have
accepted its terms, but they are not happy and will continue to search for a better
alternative.
Part of Apple's brand appeal has always been that it was a plucky challenger, first
against IBM, then against Microsoft. But in smartphones, the challenger was Google
and — maybe — Apple is the new Nokia. If so, this could be the start of a bigger
change in terms of whose platform will dominate the wider internet. Apple should
indeed be scared. As Intel's Andy Grove famously noted, only the paranoid survive.
Patrick Barwise is emeritus professor of management and marketing at London
Business School. Seán Meehan is the Martin Hilti Professor of Marketing and
Change Management at IMD, Lausanne, Switzerland. The authors' new book
Beyond the Familiar: Long-Term Growth through Customer Focus and Innovation
has just been published by Jossey-Bass.
Circulation
38,000
Singapore
April 26, 2011
Circulation
901,000
Monthly visits
Switzerland
Text messaging project fights malaria
Experts from various fields have united to provide
more efficient distribution of malaria medicine.
A case study from the IMD International business school in Lausanne shows how the
“SMS for Life” project uses text message technology to improve the supply chain for
anti-malaria drugs in Tanzania.
“Supply chain difficulties within many African countries make it hard to get the drugs
to the right place at the right time. The SMS for Life project saw a group of people
from a number of different companies work together to solve this problem using SMS
technology,” said IMD Professor and academic adviser Donald A. Marchand in a
statement.
The project team included representatives from Basel-based drug company Novartis
as well as experts from Vodafone, Google and IBM.
“SMS for Life” uses mobile phones, text messages and electronic mapping
technology to track stock levels at public health facilities. This helps prevent stockouts while increasing access to the medicine – and reducing the number of deaths
from malaria.
To eliminate bureaucracy, the companies involved decided not to bother with
contracts outlining who would do what, exactly. Instead, each partner agreed to
provide their services for free and to cover their own costs.
“Executive programs at business schools are not only about making money and
growing companies; they are also about doing the right thing,” Marchand said.
Monday is World Malaria Day – a day meant to raise awareness of the disease that
kills a child every 30 seconds and about a million people every year.
Circulation
2.1 million
USA
April 26 2011
Monaco Hopes for Tourism Boost From 'Other' Royal Wedding
By KATHARINA BART
With media excitement at Prince William's
impending nuptials to Kate Middleton reaching
fever pitch, royal watchers in a tiny Mediterranean
principality 650 miles southeast of London are
gearing up for 2011's "other" royal wedding.
Meticulous preparations are underway in Monaco
for the first royal wedding since Grace Kelly
married Prince Rainier in 1956, with tourism
officials betting the razzmatazz surrounding Prince
Albert's upcoming marriage to Charlene Wittstock
will spawn a tourist industry of royal wedding
knock-offs.
The palace and Monaco's tourist board have joined forces to orchestrate the wedding of 53year-old perennial bachelor Prince Albert to Ms. Wittstock, a South African swimming champ,
hoping it will rekindle memories of Monaco's glitzy heyday.
Billed as "the wedding of the century" by the tourist board, the religious ceremony will take
place July 2 in the palace courtyard, at Prince Albert's explicit request, rather than in the
cathedral where Prince Rainier and Princess Grace got hitched. The palace gates will be left
open so up to 3,500 visitors can follow the ceremony on giant screens in the palace square.
More screens broadcasting the nuptials will be set up throughout the city, which will get a twoday public holiday for the celebrations.
The wedding of Prince Albert and Ms. Wittstock, 33, "is unique for the principality of Monaco,
a unique opportunity for tourism," says tourism and convention president Michel Bouquier.
"If all the population plus guests [tourists] shows up, we could easily double or even triple the
number of visitors we had for Albert's ascension to the throne" in 2005, which was 28,000,
Monaco spokeswoman Genevieve Berti said at a briefing in Zurich designed to promote
Monaco to Swiss tourists.
Monaco is leaving little to chance, seizing upon marketing tools more at home in reality shows
and movie premieres to inject a shot of fairy-tale glamour into the mini-state's flagging tourism
industry. The prince has struck a sponsorship deal with Lexus to drive the bride in a hybrid
car—a nod to the prince's green leanings—to the nearby Sainte-Dévote chapel, where she
will follow the Monegasque tradition of laying down her bridal bouquet to the patron saint of
Monaco.
Behind the pageantry lies a long-term business plan, observers say. "I think the objective is
probably to rebrand Monaco as a kind of fairy-tale place, and not only a place where you hide
your money," says Stephane Garelli, professor of competitiveness at the IMD business school
in Lausanne. "Grace Kelly was part of the fairy tale and I think they are trying to reproduce
that," says Mr. Garelli.
Monaco's heyday as a glitzy tourist destination was fuelled by the 1956 wedding of Grace
Kelly to Prince Rainier. The less than one-square-mile strip on the Mediterranean attracted
the rich and famous even as Prince Rainier managed to lessen Monaco's reliance on casino
gambling.
Banking secrecy and Monaco's standing as a tax haven have also helped tourism by
attracting wealthy visitors. Big-ticket events aimed at the rich include next month's Formula 1
Grand Prix and a September yacht show known colloquially as Yachtapalooza for the superrich.
Like Switzerland, where tourism in famous ski resorts like St. Moritz and Gstaad goes handin-hand with private banking, Monaco has been adept at combining the two industries, with
tourism accounting for 15% of GDP and banking and finance 17%. But also like Switzerland,
Monaco can no longer buck international pressure and has watered down its secrecy laws,
which is expected to hurt tourism numbers.
Monaco has also been a destination for business events, such as an annual reinsurance
conference that attracts several thousand industry executives. The financial crisis took its toll,
with a 10% slide in overnight hotel stays in 2009 before recovering some ground with a 5%
rise last year.
And so Monaco is taking the Albert-and-Charlene show on the road this month , detailing
plans for July's elaborate four-day wedding festivities to foreign media in cities like Zurich and
Moscow, and hoping the royal wedding will prompt demand for grand-scale weddings,
especially from Asia. One Indian couple, art gallery owner Gaurav Assomull and socialiterestaurateur Kajal Fabiani, reportedly spent €10 million staging a sumptuous four-day
"destination" wedding celebration for 600 guests last month, complete with Indian elephants.
"We can customize the principality of Monaco, it was a bespoke event," tourism official
Guillaume Rose said of the Assomull-Fabiani wedding. Though some question the strategy at
a time when so many people are being forced to tighten their belts, experts say it stands a
good chance of success because of the perpetual appetite for glamour. "People world-wide
are always interested in a royal wedding of whatever caliber, and it carries media attention.
It's a glamorous destination and I can understand why they may think they can utilize it to
heighten their profile," says Fiona Jeffery, chairwoman of World Travel Market, which
organizes international travel and tourism events for more than 180 member countries.
Early indications suggest Monaco's plan is working: Two French couples and a couple from
the U.S. are set to orchestrate similarly lavish weddings in June and July, Mr. Rose, the
Monaco tourism official, says. With 1,000 guests apiece, the three weddings have already
attracted 2,000 hotel room bookings, he says.
Circulation
35,000
USA
April 27, 2011
Is Your Social Media Strategy S-I-C-K?
By Michael Wade
Most of us are regularly bombarded by technological innovations that fight for our
attention. More often than not, these "latest and greatest" fads fail to make much of an
impression on our lives (remember Second Life ?). What is true for our personal
lives is also true for our professional lives, only the stakes are higher.
By now, most people know about social media. Yet, marketers are still trying to figure
out how to use it in their organizations. Most firms are dabbling around the margins or
simply waiting on the sidelines to see whether it has staying power. Indeed, fewer
than half of the 50 largest firms in Europe have links to any social media applications
from their home pages. According to the 2010 MIS Quarterly Executive study "How
Large U.S. Companies Can Use Twitter and Other Social Media to Gain Business
Value," the situation is not much better in the U.S., with 36 percent of Fortune 500
companies having no social media presence whatsoever.
How involved should your organization be in social media, if at all? In my opinion,
organizational success with social media comes down to how SICK your strategy is.
SICK is short for:
1. Segmentation
2. Implementation
3. Critical Mass
4. Knowledge Integration
1. Segmentation
Social media has many variations, and you should decide what you want to do and
where you want to play. Indeed, segmentation needs to occur along three dimensions:
by objective, by stakeholder and by application.
Let's look first at objectives. Organizations must identify what they want to achieve
with social media. Common options include branding, informing, innovating, selling
and recruiting. If the answer is not obvious, or cannot be clearly articulated, then the
best approach is, "Don't do it!" It is important to clearly define objectives in advance,
because the form of your social media strategy will vary depending on the choices
you make. For example, recruiting tends to work well on YouTube, but not
necessarily on Twitter. Branding works well on Facebook, while informing is best
done with RSS feeds. If you are not clear on your objectives, you run the risk of
wasting resources on approaches that are not productive.
The second segmentation category is stakeholder. Different segments respond to
different approaches. The fastest growing Facebook segment, for instance, is women
over age 55. Very few of them, however, are on Twitter. The approach taken to entice
an impulse snack food purchaser will be very different from the one used to
communicate the benefits of baby nutrition to a new mother. You need to be clear on
what segments you are targeting and adjust your social media strategy accordingly.
The third segmentation category is application. If you have properly segmented your
approach by objective and customer, then it will often be quite clear which social
media application to use. B-to-B firms may have less need for Facebook than, say,
Coca Cola, but they might get a lot of value from an innovation tournament or an RSS
feed. You have to understand the pros and cons of each application and play to its
strengths.
2. Implementation
Many firms have a scattershot social media strategy. They may have a couple brandfocused Facebook sites run by different divisions, and PR may have a Twitter
account, but there is little consistency or coordination behind the scenes. Dangers lurk
if a structured approach is not taken. Many firms have paid a steep price for
undisciplined social media practices—some recent examples include United Airlines
(United Breaks Guitars! ), Kenneth Cole (Egyptian insensitivity ), and Nestle
(Kit Kats and Orangutans ).
Your social media strategy should be well-coordinated. This means implementing
rules and codes of conduct, training employees on social media norms, articulating a
consistent corporate message, measuring performance, implementing strong
governance, and avoiding unnecessary proliferation (including shutting down sites
where necessary). This part of the strategy is a necessary evil.
3. Critical Mass
If you build it, will they come? Probably not, unless you make it worth their while. Of
course, social media is only effective if there is a critical mass of people using it. In
this respect, it's not really social media at all, but collective media. There is nothing
sadder than a corporate Facebook page with 86 absentee fans and stale content.
Building critical mass is hard work. It requires lots of content that is updated regularly
and a high level of engagement—often including senior management involvement.
Practically speaking, it requires well-trained, full-time staff to monitor and respond to
consumer questions, comments and concerns.
If you are lucky, you will have regular interaction with 10 percent of your community.
And, for a site to have the required amount of communication "liquidity," in my
experience it needs at least 100 participating users. That means that your site better
have 1,000 or more members (Facebook fans, Twitter followers, YouTube views,
etc). Building that degree of engagement is tough, but organizations are getting
creative. The airline JetBlue hit a home run with its "All-You-Can-Jet" Facebook
promotion . Some progressive firms are even providing discounts to prolific bloggers
and tweeters in the hopes that they will spread a good word or two about their
experiences with the company.
4. Knowledge Integration
The final piece of the social media puzzle is knowledge integration. Social media
provides a wealth of information about products, customer experiences, competitors
and areas for improvement. It is the proverbial canary in the coal mine for many
organizations. Unfortunately, many firms are still very poor at integrating and acting
on the information they receive through social channels. They often lack a mechanism
to filter and capture insights, and to feed these into the decision-making apparatus.
Some companies take this very seriously. For example, when Starbucks learned
through its social media channels that customers disliked having to throw away their
paper cups, the company implemented a campaign encouraging the use of reusable
containers, and offered a free cup of coffee in return.
Given its massive user base and rapid growth, social media is likely here to stay.
However, organizations that want to be involved need to approach it with care. There
can be benefits, but also risks. When it comes to social media, it's good to be SICK!
Michael Wade is a Professor of innovation and strategic information management
at IMD , in Lausanne, Switzerland. He teaches in IMD's program Strategic
Marketing in Action and can be reached at [email protected].
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April 28, 2011
Syndicated
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Worldwide
This article was printed in more than 100 news outlets.
April 29, 2011
By Kelly Olsen, The Associated Press
TOKYO - Before disaster struck, Japan 's leaders were vowing to counter the prospect of longterm economic decline with a new spirit of engagement with the rest of the world.
Freer trade and deeper economic ties could help re-energize an economy stifled by deflation and
eclipsed in size by rising rival China and in vision by smaller, more dynamic countries such as
neighbouring South Korea .
Now, as Japan deals with the aftermath of triple calamities — earthquake, tsunami and nuclear
reactor leaks — the considerable challenges of remaking the world's third-largest economy have
become even bigger and may take a backseat to reconstruction.
"Those who want to return to a more Keynesian, pump-priming and heavy government control of
the economy will argue that this is the time to rebuild Japan and to use the government's
leadership," said Michael Green, an analyst and Japan expert at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington. "The other side of the debate will say no, now is the time to
build more market fundamentals and really put some dynamism and growth" into the economy.
Japan faces a massive recovery bill, already estimated as high as 25 trillion yen ($305 billion),
equivalent to the size of Greece's entire economy and that may get bigger. The tab could strain
already overloaded government finances against the backdrop of one of the world's most rapidly
aging societies.
Talk of the need for Japan to further open its economy has been a call heard for decades without
much progress.
" Japan has been and is in many respects a fortress," said Jean-Pierre Lehmann, professor of
international political economy at the IMD business school in Lausanne, Switzerland, citing low
levels of imports, inward investment and foreign workers.
And despite its economic heft in the global economy in terms of overall size, it has lagged far
behind in terms of leadership and setting the global trade agenda.
" Japan 's been irrelevant, really," Lehmann said, referring to the country's stance in the current
round of stalled World Trade Organization talks. "It's far less important than a country like Brazil,
for example, in determining trade policy."
Things weren't looking bright for Japan even before March 11, the day its northeast coast was
struck by a magnitude-9.0 earthquake and devastating tsunami, which crippled a nuclear power
plant and led to the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years.
Faced with a bleak future marked by slow decline as national wealth faded away with a shrinking
population, the country was widely described as having fallen into a psychological funk.
China, where economic growth rates sometimes exceed 10 per cent a year, overtook Japan last
year as the world's No. 2 economy, a position held for decades behind close ally, the U.S.
Beijing also appeared to be flexing its growing economic muscle at Tokyo's expense. A tense
encounter near disputed islands last year ended with Japan seen as giving in to Chinese threats
and punitive action, such as halting exports of rare earth metals needed to make high-tech
products.
Japan is also facing the demographic challenge of a fast aging society, with 40 per cent of
citizens expected to be 65 or over by 2050. The country's population fell by a record amount last
year and declined for the fourth straight year. Adding to the overall pessimism has been a public
debt of more than twice its gross domestic product.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan, whose political stature was wobbly even before the disasters, has
been a vocal advocate of his country looking outward for opportunity and revitalization. His
government has called for slashing trade barriers, cutting red tape and encouraging investment.
Japan is studying participation in the U.S.-backed Trans-Pacific Partnership, a proposed free
trade zone that would link several economies lining the Pacific Rim, but which is opposed by
Japanese farmers. It has also been studying a possible three-way free trade deal with China and
South Korea .
Tokyo has looked on anxiously in recent years as dynamic smaller neighbour South Korea has
carried out a national strategy of forging free trade agreements with the United States, European
Union and other economies including India.
Angel Gurria, secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development,
said that the tragedies may have the effect of forcing Japan to move faster to confront its
burdensome fiscal problems.
"Right now, there is the opportunity to plant the seeds of a better tomorrow," he told reporters last
week in Tokyo. The OECD also called for Japan to increase participation in regional free trade
agreements and hike its sales tax.
To be sure, Japan has remade itself before in the wake of disasters, which have fostered national
unity and given a shot in the arm to new levels of development.
The country's previous worst natural disaster came in 1923 when a magnitude 8.3 earthquake
and ensuing fires destroyed Tokyo and nearby Yokohama, killing more than 140,000 people.
Japan rebuilt and pushed on to expand its nascent empire that already included the Korean
peninsula by invading China and Southeast Asia — and gambling that it could defeat the United
States.
That wager ended in destruction, defeat and a temporary loss of independence under a U.S.-led
occupation. But Japan remade itself, renouncing war under the sway of American Gen. Douglas
MacArthur and transforming itself into an export juggernaut that turned the expression "Made in
Japan " into a worldwide badge of quality and pride.
Experts say that if Japan is to truly embrace and achieve openness following the disasters, it will
need bold leadership from more outward-looking politicians.
"I think this is an opportunity if the younger generation play their cards right and if they are
courageous enough to stand up to the status quo," said Noriko Hama, a professor at Doshisha
University's graduate school of business in Kyoto. "The general public are very willing to support
them."

of bubbles and bursts: where is sustainability in all this?

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