Cliente, innovación y fracaso: la experiencia de Amazon

Amazon sigue siendo una empresa única. Por encima de su espectacular crecimiento, su oferta de productos y su continua innovación, está su obsesión por el cliente.

Esto lleva a Amazon a tomar decisiones arriesgadas, a lanzar productos y servicios que finalmente no funcionarán, a invertir más de lo que parecería razonable en nuevos productos y servicios y a controlar elementos de la cadena de valor la compañía considera esenciales para proveer el mejor servicio al cliente y que otras empresas competidoras descartarían.

Una nuevo modelo educativo para un mundo de emprendedores

Ser emprendedor está de moda.

Dejando de lado si hemos abusado de esta palabra y si la estamos utilizando de forma frívola, lo cual podría deducirse de su constante utilización en programas televisivos, es cierto que estamos viviendo una verdadera revolución laboral y las oportunidades profesionales tal y como las conocemos van a desaparecer.

Esto tiene sus causas tanto en la oferta como en la demanda. Por el lado de la oferta, las empresas, grandes y pequeñas, no van a contratar a personas como lo hacían antes. Ante un futuro mucho más incierto, donde antes contrataban a 100, ahora contratarán a 10.

Por el lado de la demanda, la crisis actual ha demostrado que hay que relativizar la seguridad laboral. Tanto en el sector público como en el privado se ha demostrado que en tiempos de recesión hay pocos frenos a la reducción de empleo y salarios. Por tanto, el atractivo de trabajar en una empresa o en la administración pública ha disminuido considerablemente.

Are EU businesses considering long-term social trends? They should better do

When talking about the long-term future of EU businesses, which is not an easy task when all what seems to matter is the short-term, there is a tendency to highlight regulatory, economic and political issues. Among the recurrent themes are sluggish growth in developed countries and the rise of some emerging economies such as China and Brazil, the cost of energy and the status of the relationships with some of the main EU providers, and the never-addressed constraints to create a real EU single market.

Less attention is given to some of the social issues that could most significantly affect the future of EU business and that are probably more relevant than many of the economic, political and regulatory factors we have got used to hear about.

La onda expansiva de la revolución energética estadounidense

El mundo ha sufrido numerosos cambios tras la crisis que afecta a Europa y EE. UU. Pero también hay cosas que no lo han hecho. Entre ellas se encuentra el hecho de que, a futuro, el crecimiento va provenir de los países emergentes. Y ya no solo gracias a las exportaciones, mermadas tras la crisis que afecta a los principales mercados, sino fundamentalmente debido al aumento de la demanda interna.

Las consecuencias de este desequilibrio de crecimiento económico son muy relevantes: China deja de ser un exportador para convertirse en el primer mercado mundial, las empresas de Brasil e India comienzan a comprar empresas fuera de sus fronteras para adquirir tecnología y conocimiento, y la geopolítica cambia radicalmente debido al cambio originado por un nuevo reparto del poder, en la medida en que la UE y EE.UU. resuelven sus problemas económicos - y políticos- internos y pierden interés por el resto del mundo.

En este contexto, hay pocos factores que puedan restablecer el terreno perdido por los países desarrollados. Entre este selecto grupo de factores, nada podría tener un mayor impacto que el desarrollo en EE.UU. de la producción de shale gas -también conocido en español como gas de esquisto-.

The nature of the current political (r)evolutions

One of the most striking pictures of 2012 is the one that shows the Spanish Parliament protected by a security fence and dozens of policemen.

The divide between politicians and citizens is larger than ever. There is a deep resentment about how they are dealing with the crisis and the unfairness of the adjustments - in Portugal, for example, the president has even submitted the latest budget to the courts because he has requested confirmation of its constitutionality.

Drastic pay cuts in the public sector - remember, not only the  employee at the ministry desk but also the doctor, the teacher and the tax fraud investigator- and privatisation of public services to a larger of lesser degree is also being questioned and it is raising concerns among all citizens, no matter who they voted for. The same is happening with pensions.

In addition, this is taking place in the context of a massive bailout of a large part of the financial system, which, no coincidence, in Spain was in their majority savings banks controlled by regional politicians.

To all this, we can add a strong nationalist push in Catalonia that is taking a lot of attention from the really relevant issues.

Without getting into whether there could have been other ways of tackling the crisis, the key question is the impact that these protests will have on our political system.

La naturaleza de las actuales (r)evoluciones políticas

Una de las fotos más impactantes de 2012 es la que muestra el Congreso de los Diputados protegido por vallas y decenas de policías.

El distanciamiento entre ciudadanos y políticos es mayor que nunca. Hay una gran indignación en relación a cómo se está actuando contra la crisis y el impacto desigual que las medidas económicas están teniendo en la sociedad. En Portugal, sin ir más lejos, el propio presidente del país ha decidido consultar con los tribunales la legalidad de las medidas de ajuste pues corren el riesgo de ser declaradas inconstitucionales si se considera que no cumplen el principio de equidad.

Los recortes en los salarios de los funcionarios -recordemos: entre ellos están nuestros profesores, médicos e inspectores fiscales- y la privatización, en mayor o menor grado, de los servicios públicos están siendo cuestionados y están preocupando a todos los ciudadanos, independientemente de su orientación política. Lo mismo está sucediendo con la reforma del sistema de pensiones.

Asimismo, las reformas están teniendo lugar en el contexto de un rescate a gran escala del sistema financiero, donde, no por casualidad, las entidades en peor situación son las cajas, todas ellas vinculadas al poder político.

Por si fuera necesario hacer la foto más compleja, a todo ello debemos añadirle un fuerte impulso al proceso soberanista en Cataluña que está robando la atención a temas mucho más importantes.

No es de extrañar, por tanto, que haya una gran preocupación y desconfianza sobre el proceso de reformas, que una parte muy importante de la población no se sienta representada en el sistema político actual y que por tanto se haya movilizado contra este exigiendo un cambio.

Pensar despacio, actuar rápido - teniendo en cuenta el largo plazo

En España, uno de los países más afectados por la actual crisis internacional, estamos atravesando un periodo de profundas reformas económicas y sociales.

Y es una lástima que no estuviéramos ni mucho menos preparados para ello. Porque cuando las decisiones políticas deben tomarse en tan corto periodo de tiempo, lo más probable es que se haga buscando el impacto en el corto plazo, sin distinguir entre las necesidades inmediatas del país y aquellas esenciales en el largo plazo.

Para ilustrarlo, podemos considerar dos medidas tomadas para equilibrar las cuentas públicas y reducir el déficit. Una de ellas busca aumentar los ingresos y la otra reducir los gastos.

Think slow, act fast - and always consider the long-term

We are through a period of deep reforms in Spain, one of the countries more affected by the crisis.

Shame that we were not prepared for this. Because when policy moves this fast, the odds favor a short term vision. It becomes difficult to distinguish between the immediate and the long term needs of a country.

To illustrate this, we can focus on two measures taken to balance the Spanish public sector accounts, one on the revenue side and the other on the expenditure front.

Facebook against Itself

So Mark Zuckenberg is Time’s 2010 Person of the Year and Goldman Sachs in valuing Facebook at $50bn. While we believe the former is well-deserved, we are not so sure about the latter. This is because although we praise Zuckenberg for creating Facebook, we are uncertain about the company’s future.

The “I Passed, She Flunked Me” Syndrome and the Current Crisis

It is striking how well-equipped humans are to find self-defense mechanisms to any perceived aggression. And the current economic crisis is no different.

There are multiple causes that created the current state of things: regulators, poor management – especially in financial institutions, miscalculation of individual wealth, poor financial criteria, greed and so on.

Despite the apparently large set of reasons that caused the crisis, in some countries, citizens are now devoting a great deal of time to blame governments for their responsibility on, first, creating the current situation and second, their inability to put the economy back on track.

Apart from the questionable positive effect of this effort on promoting recovery, which would not be the objective of this column, the criticism seems to be highly ironic.

Decision-making in politics: Good leaders should do better

How far can political leaders go for their ideas? History has showed us that very far. For good or bad, several of the major events the world has experienced have been driven by the ideas of a small number of people. This selected group of individuals that – deservedly or undeservedly – become leaders hold the ideas that drive society.

However, leaders are not always right. For this reason, ensuring that the decision-making process at the top of government is sufficiently solid and avoids – or at least minimizes – policy mistakes is something that all political processes need to address.

In this respect, most societies have established mechanisms to ensure that adequate check and balance structures improve the decision-making process and protect societies and stakeholders from concentration of power.

The EU and an inescapable sense of urgency

Europe faced the beginning of the century with great optimism. The EU political agenda was on track and the euro, the key European project in the last 20 years, seemed to set the beginning of the final process towards European integration. Overall, the EU seemed to be heading towards a long period of prosperity.

This context provided a key opportunity to close the gap with the US in terms of competitiveness and innovation. In this respect, the European Commission took the important step of launching an ambitious effort in this direction: the Lisbon Agenda, presented two years before the birth of the euro, set the target of the EU to become the most competitive region in 2010.

The program, however, never permeated to EU Member Countries through policy actions and has radically failed to achieve its goals, as several evaluations from the very own EU have stated.

When do you earn too much? The not-so-new risk and reward rule

In principle, there should not be anything wrong with what you earn as long as your boss (remember: the shareholder, not the CEO) is fine with it. You produced it, therefore you earned it. A basic law of free markets and capitalism.

This understanding seemed to be in place in investment banking up to 2008. Until that year, the financial sector underwent an explosive growth underpinned by a boom in debt and supposedly risk diversification strategies and products. Value creation to shareholders was high, investors earned reaped huge profits. Employees shared a significant part of these returns through well above-the-median salaries and bonuses.

Modern society, old regime: What's the way out of the puzzle?

What is the future that awaits Iran? Even when, for now, the country seems stable and its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini and President Ahmadinejad seem to have a strong grip on the country, in the medium term there might be important changes.

Supporting the Searcher: Welcome to micro-lending at large

I discovered Kiva a year ago and since then I have been excited for what it represents. Its business model arguably is the biggest progress in supporting development in the last decades. Have you ever imagined you could lend money to someone in Karachi, Pakistan starting a store? How about lending to open a weaving business in Chichicastenango, Guatemala? Now you can. Welcome to micro-lending at large.

On intellectual property

It is interesting that monopolies are out of fashion, except where intellectual property is concerned. For intellectual property, theory goes, monopoly rights are awarded by the government to foster the innovation process that is essential for the well-being and progress of society. In the case of patents, these rights allow patent holders to recover the costs incurred in research and development and obtain exclusive economic profit generated from the invention during the length of the patent.

Increased efficiency and accountability is what development assistance needs

So far, development assistance led mainly by the World Bank has not had the expected impact on promoting economic and social development.

The response to this lack of results has been twofold. First, during the last decade, the World Bank, along with regional multilateral banks and bilateral donors, has broadened its areas of expertise. They currently range from dam building to human rights' protection and from financial advisory services toempoweringt of local communities. Second, developed countries have renewed efforts to increase aid budgets. Both are wrong policy options. Priority should be given to increasing the efficiency of development assistance.

The US and Latin America: Towards a new relationship

Recent political developments in Latin America have sparked discussions over the hands-off approach that the Bush administration has taken towards the region. Whether forced by priorities in other regions of the world, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in particular, or by a well-thought new strategy towards the region, it is clear that the role of the US in this region has been less noticeable during these last years.

Overcoming the CAP debate: Two priorities for the EU budget

The UK's presidency over the EU came in a very challenging time. Mainly, the European Constitution had been rejected in France and The Netherlands and Tony Blair was weak at home. Nevertheless, the hopes were high. Mr. Blair’s speeches in June highlighted the main problem that the EU budget was suffering from: a huge misalignment between the priorities agreed under the Lisbon agenda and the actual budget. As he remarked, there is a problem in a Union that wants to be at the forefront of innovation and economic growth but at the same time allocates 40 percent of the budget to agricultural policies.

The opportunity of Evo in Bolivia

Is Evo Morales’ victory in the Bolivian presidential election a threat or an opportunity to the political stability of Bolivia and the Andean region? Although Mr. Morales is seen by many as the former, we tend to think that Mr. Morales and a new national political and social pact in the country can turn out to be the latter.