World Business Forum (cont.) - Change is Changing

Dennis Nally Chairman of PriceWaterhouseCoopers International Ltd. spoke of the need to restore trust in government, business and among countries. He called for more transparency: "Only when there is transparency can investors understand the risks and rewards." He called for convergence of global standards and regulations, such as the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). 

Francisco Gonzalez Chairman and CEO of BBVA, the 2nd largest bank in Spain and the 7th in the world, said that his bank was not impaired by the Global Recession because they base their business on principals (legal and ethical operations), people (customers and community) and innovation (transformational technology). He is in the midst of combining the physical and virtual relationships with his customers.

Peter Voser CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, the largest oil company in the world, pointed out that we will have 3 billion new energy users in the coming years, so there is an urgent need for carbon capture and storage. Natural gas should replace coal for electrical generation at it has half the carbon emissions. We should implement a global cap on carbon emissions.

Morris Chang founding Chairman of Taiwan Semiconductor was upbeat, admitting that his company was almost back at pre-crisis levels. He agreed that solar energy is a semi-conductor industry.

Roger Agnelli CEO Vale (not the ski resort but the Brazilian iron ore and nickle mining gorilla) was also upbeat because of infrastructure building in China and probably soon in the USA.

Gary Hamel, business strategy guru, stated that the greatest invention of the past century was management but said that not much has changed since the heyday of management innovation many decades ago. We need a mental revolution, a revolution in management. Change is changing (faster pace, exponential change). The world is more turbulent, but firms are not more resilient. How do you build a company where innovation is each employee's job? He seems to be embracing the Internet, social networking, transparency and peer pressure as the solution. Leaders should be selected from below, not from above. He implied and suggested that crowd sourcing and predictive software, respectively, are the waves of the future.

Irene Rosenfeld CEO of Kraft Foods lectured on how she transformed Kraft into a decentralized sustainable growth company by spending her first hundred days in office listening carefully to her employees, customers and suppliers.

Prof. Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist, praised "Bernanke banking" for saving us from a full blown depression. He pointed out that growth has resumed but the damage is severe. Unemployment continues to increase, and it may take many years to decrease significantly. International trade has taken a bigger hit than during the Great Depression and may not resume as before due to higher energy costs and most of the progress in transportation - containerization and communication - has already been realized.

Former President Bill Clinton said that the "world is crying out" not about what to do or how much it will cost but concerning how to make the most of what you plan to do to have a positive impact on peoples' lives. Still a politician, he said that the answer to "Is the recession over?" is "yes," "no" and "maybe." Yes, we have resumed growth. No, people are not better off (we have lost 7 million jobs). Maybe, people remain spooked. He prefers the term "interdependence" over "globalization" because the latter is an economic term, while the former is holistic. He described how the world is too unequal, unstable and unsustainable. We have to produce more jobs! His ultimate message, using Mexico as an example, seemed to be, "Be kind to your neighbors."

Comments

[Brandice]

IJWTS wow! Why can't I think of tihngs like that?

[tumeurbam]

Angry Birds