Some of the reflections put forward on the Spanish crisis are both headline-making stories in themselves and at the same time generators of debate. Their profundity is such that a high level of knowledge and analysis is required to know if they are valid and true or if their implementation would achieve the desired results.

Two economists, Raghuram Rajan, Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago, and Michael Pettis, Professor of Finance at the Guanghua University in Beijiing, were interviewed by two different Spanish newspapers (El País y La Vanguardia). After a lengthy introduction in which they analyzed the international economic situation, they were asked about the Spanish economy. For me it felt like having to eat a pudding when you’re already full from a three-course meal. Read More »

I have been leafing through the typical Fashion and Luxury magazines while I was on the plane today. After that, I have had the feeling that we are not going the right way. It was a feeling that had to do with the way we are teaching our kids, which does not seem to be the right one. It is not that these magazines are not alright or the fact that what they sell or propose is unsuitable or out of the point in the hard times we are going through. What is wrong is to take this idea as a way of living; and that is worrying. This is why I have come up with some ideas from a conference given by Bernardo Kliksberg.

We speak about companies’ Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) a lot. Most of the times, our points of view merely show a “tactic” or “marketing” approach towards CSR, while other times, our points of view are pretty strategic and our own company missions involve being socially active. However, we speak very little about this CSR applied to managers at other companies.

In spite of this, recently, people speak a lot about the values and the ethics which are supposed to move managers. In fact, it is a good sign that the current Dean at Harvard Business School, who was named just a few months ago, is Nitin Nohria  who has been a strong defender for over two decades of a way to manage businesses ethically and responsibly. At his appointment, he stated “It’s hard to deny that to some extent society’s trust in business has taken a hit. As dean, one of my great hopes is to restore the trust lost, innovate in curriculum, innovate in research, and usher in a new century of innovation that would usher in a new sense of business’s role in society”, making clear reference to the extremely greedy practices that many managers who had attended the best business schools had practiced in the last years. Read More »

What is the public administration purpose?  Why is the current situation with civil servants happening in Spain?  What will happen with this economic sector in the future?

I have just taken part in the Seminar of High Management at University (Jornadas de Alta Dirección Universitaria) organised by the Innovation Department of Universidad y Empresa, under the slogan “People management at University”. We had to provide our point of view about people management in private companies for an audience composed by managers and deputies from Catalonian universities. Our tablemates, the Human Resources & Organisation Manager from The Council of Barcelona and the Director of the Public Administration School of Catalonia, both expressed their approach to the issue from a ‘public’ point of view. So far, I had not had the opportunity to have a deep look at the civil servants collective and their problem. Not even now do I see myself able to provide you with a clear answer for the aforementioned questions but I do realise that we have got a problem we need to solve and, if public institutions and their employees do not make a step forward by themselves in order to perform a 21^st Century Civil Service, the private labour collective will have to ask them to do so and help them get it. Read More »

My first business experience with a Chinese company has been completely satisfactory –the four days we’ve been with them in Shanghai and Beijing making contacts and looking at some business opportunities have been very beneficial. After meeting personally and seeing how they behave as hosts, I have learnt three things: 1. The word “business” has its own dimension for them, 2. You have to do things step by step and, 3. We are not partners, but friends.

During these last few months, we had realised that the Chinese companies had started to show their interest in Spain and we have been able to prove that through this business travel. The reasons for this are unclear: from the interest of big Chinese corporations to invest in South America and analyse the European market using Spain as a launchpad –which will drag other smaller companies as well, up to more modest companies looking for investment alternatives. The latter is precisely the kind of company which has attracted our attention the most. They obviously have a growing domestic market and they would not need –not yet, to look beyond their borders. According to our model, these small and middle-sized companies should not come up in such an early stage of the future spread of Chinese companies through the world. Read More »

Alfredo Saenz, CEO of Banco Santander is one of those bankers who you would trust your money because you really feel you can rely on him to give you your money back and even having earned an interest. At the conference organised on May 12^th by Esade Business School, I found him self-confident, showing his composure, speaking in a really straightforward and clear way at the end of his talk.

To give you an example of what I mean:

“Banks are not ONG’s and if they forecast problems to get their money back, they do not lend that money. The same goes for entrepreneurs; if there are no guarantees, they do not lend either.”

Due to the crisis, productivity has risen. This has happened because the least productive and least skilled members of the workforce have left the labour market. What has been lost in Spain so far have just been “junk jobs”.

At the first stage of his talk, he went over the reasons which led to the current crisis. He talked about policies such as the one which applied low interest rates, used by western economies even in periods when there was an economic growth. According to him, this is precisely what led to an excessive settling down of finance, both in the public and in the private sector. Spain, the UK or the USA –among others, were spending more than they could afford, while China and Japan were financing this spending. This trend finally burst because these countries got too deep into debt and this debt was not guaranteed by the value of the assets that neither the public nor the private sector of them really had. One of the triggers which caused this situation was the high risk subprime mortgages issue. Read More »