Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Tata Nano

Unveiled last Thursday: the Indians from Tata are going to build the cheapest car in the world: worth just $2500.

Monday, January 28, 2008

LSE Lecture: The company of 2020

My housemates and I were just thinking about this...our lives are quite interesting...lots of events, museums, etc available in London...all you need to do is take advantage.
So as a part of my ''explore London'' programme, as I realised I may not be here long, I started by going to the very cool Natural History Museum yesterday and to a London School of Economics lecture today.

This lecture was held by a managing partner of McKinsey in UK and Ireland. So if you're interested in what he thinks will be the characteristics of the global companies in 2020 read on...

He first started by looking at trends of the past 20 years, like:
- population growth of 34%, therefore markets grew
- growth in GDP, trade and capital flows
- increase in complexity and efficiency of financial services
- the growth of BRIC markets: Brazil, Russia, India, China
In this context, global companies made sense, to lower costs and to access better human resources. Asnd some did well, increasing their revenue by 50% and their income by 150%, and some others fell under the pressure.

So what does the near future hold for global companies?
He identified 5 opportunities and 5 challenges. The 5 opportunities are:

1. Manage your portfolio effectively.
Centers of power ares shifting (see places like Dubai, growing at an incredible rate), companies having to adapt to markets in developing countries which are diiferent from the developed countries, consumers will double in number in the next decade, demographics and distribution channels are different, etc.
Interesting facts: even if emerging markets are growing, by 2015 the developed markets will still be spending 16 times more than the developed ones. Also, 60% of the Spanish population in the US will have more buying power by 2015 than the whole Chinese population.
Therefore, one opportunity for companies in the future is balancing the developing and developed markets.

2. Capitalise on the technological revolution.
Facebook got 60 mil. people on in the past 6 years and the truth is that technological connectivity is changing our businesses from a monologue to a dialogue.
True value will come from comibing technology with new ways of doing business.

3. Understand and anticipate better the risks of resouce scarcity. The world is shifting to a low-carbon economy, where regulation is tighter, where carbon markets will grow to the size of today's oil markets and where investment in renewable energy will grow.

4. Shaping an effective social agenda- paying more attention to socio-political and grass roots movements. So companies will need to evaluate the risk of trends, try to turn them into opportunities, build relationships, worry about brands and reutations and about regulation.

5. Engaging with governments- there is a lot to gain from public-private partnerships, as there are higher expectations from the public sector to create wealth and to deliver more public services.

The 5 implications from the above challenges are:

1. Continuing the economic imperative to make money. How? through capital assessment of risk and reward opportunities. Nothing new.

2. Using complexity to their own competitive advantage (both individual and organisational)- rather than trying to simplify things.
If a company can manage a complex structure well, then this will increase its ability to adapt and:
- will give it more knowledge and insights , by connecting more dots
- will give it a bigger robustness of decision (because it can be made with contribution of more people)
- and if managed well, this will confuse the competitors.

3. Making transformation change happen- by a simple model of understanding the context, establishing where we want to go, provide leadership, strategy and processes. The company of the future, like today, will need inspirational leadership, special indivisuals that work accross culture and that borrow a lot from politicians' way: stories, key messages, a bit of crying from time to time, etc.

4. Developing global labour and talent strategy- there will be more volatility of global HR supply and demand. Most likely smaller global companies will attract more good people and will produce more value per employee (see GM vs Google).

5. Building competitive advantage through knowledge management- we create information faster, but the challenge is to manage and organise this info, make knowledge networks thrive and take things from India and apply them to Toronto.

From the Q&A session, the most interesting things mentioned were:
- What skills do employees need in the future?
More maths and statistics knowledge! to base their decisions on
and more adaptability- most likely people staying in the same business will have to go through more departments. Set careers do not work anymore.
- What new technologies will influence the future?
- biological development, the new revolution will be in healthcare
- climate products and energy efficiency
- continued application of math and statistical techniques to management- a change in business
An interesting remarque was that CSR will no longer exist as a concept of its own- there will be no more normal agenda and CSR agenda, but they will intertwine. And that is because the business, the society and especially the employees demand it.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Romania's UBS award :)

Totally forgot about this picture...
Congrats Dan on getting the internship in Microsoft Istanbul. Well done! :)

Monday, January 21, 2008

Brussels...the jumping theme :)

...Brussels, 12th of January...a rush decision to go...by bus...under the channel...

Turned out to be a great decision...

...lots of friends...and an impressive cameroonian lunch...

...chilled out time...

...beutiful city center...some more jumping...

..manechin piss :P...

..mussels from Brussels, their typical food, Lefe beer, good chocolate...

lots of greeks and turks...

...small europe...a place with miniature buildings from all over europe...

...atomium...built for the expo in '58...

...more jumping...
...more dreaming......more childhood...
...more missbehaving...

...more posing...
...and all because of Alma..who said..''Let's go to Brussels''...two days before...amasing! :)

Every Child is SpeciaL...

It's been a while since I saw a movie that is truly inspirational...and very very touching. I had a complete Indian experience this afternoon...3 hours of heartfelt movie and then yummy and cheap southern Indian dinner. I highly recommend this movie..and if you are ashamed to cry in public I recommend you watch it alone. :) It makes you go back to childhood, imagine the impossible, love kids to death and want to work with them every day, cherish your mother even more, think out of the box, live life free and not by the conventional rules, etc etc etc. Believe me...it is good! Thank you Ankit for taking us! :)

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

November trip..Dublin!

Ireland...the less wealthy sister to te UK...seemed in a few ways familiar to Romania...perhaps because of its spirit...of making fun of things...sort of like we do...not to mention the fact that they get their share of gypsies...sort like we do.

I decided to go to Dublin...home to U2, G.B Shaw I think and Oscar Wilde (I had no idea), but also to Joyce and other great writers. I was in the neighborhood (Belfast) which I got to see even less and I though I have to go to Dublin...it was only 2 hours away. And because my grandfather mentioned he did not like it when he went long time ago, I wanted to create my own impression.

Juliane was my companion in this adventure and we decided that since we are in town only for a day we might as well take the sightseeing bus to understand something of the city. And so we did and it was excellent that we did so because we saw more things, understood history better and the structure of the city...as well as from time to time listen to some very happy Irish music.

The trip started near this...tall monument that glows in the dark that is in the city center, near to their biggest shopping street. Please notice the weather similarities to London...

Our first encounter was with the statue of Molly Malone a symbol of Dublin. The statue is a celebration of the city's first milenium and was erected in 1987. Molly Malone is the name of a very popular song that has become the unofficial anthem of Dublin, sung by rugby fans. Molly was apparently a poor fish saleswoman who traded on the streets of Dublin, but died young of a fever. It is also known as ''The Tart with the Cart'' (and tart if I am not mistaken means an ''easy'' woman, as we would say it).

The bus took us by a few important state places...

By the Georgian part of town....
This door has a special story. If most doors are single on this street, because this one was double, pretty and white, they assume (or know) that it was built for royalty. One of the Georges came through here...which is why it's the most photographed door in Dublin.
Next came a bit more city center...

..and a beautiful shopping mall, with lots of flowers in the windows, where I tried a really sexy dress on. Unfortunately it was too expensive...:P

Then the old part of town caught our eye...with its celtic craftshops...

and very very beautiful ''Christ'' church.

And naturally because we are in Dublin...the Guiness factory is a must. Facts we heard from the bus driver, when our audio system broke:
- it produces around 2milion pints of beer, out of which 1m is exported and one stays in the country. According to him this is why the Irish drink so much...to get rid of this ridiculous amount of beer
- the land was rented from the state for 1000 years
- the worst pint of Guiness you can have in Dublin is at the very factory.

...we also found that a whole city/community was built around the factory for the workers...

...with blocks of flats and churches and schools and all.
Amongst the last things we saw from the bus was the U2- owned hotel (the more brown one). If you think ''oh..that's cool. maybe I can come to Dublin one day and stay there'' think again! Unless you are ready to cough out 1000 euros a night.

Getting off the bus was where the fun started and where the real spirit of Dublin started to reveal itself...with French-looking animators...

The artists...
...the dreamers...
...and the creatives.

So naturally I felt inspired...

Next stop was the beautiful St. George's castle...

...with it's beautiful surroundings.

But the best part of it all was the old part of town. I felt that's where the spitit and the creativity and the soul of the city lies.

lots of original pubs...

...shops...
...and places of worship...
..not to mention good atmosphere. So now if I think back at Dublin...

...I think about a place which is much more familiar than London, much warmer in terms of people and culture and much more creative. I like it for all the drinking, songs, clovers and sheep. I like it for the culture and subculture, for its past and present battles. It must be tough being so torn and so close to the former empire...next time I want to see the countryside as well!

Friday, January 11, 2008

Last day...



Funchal and more...