European Business Forum articles from September 2005

European Business Forum archives from September 2005

Letter from the editor.(Editorial)
September 22, 2005... Is Europe too resistant to change? The "no" votes against the proposed EU constitution and the recent textiles trade dispute with China have provided a sharp political dimension to this particular question. But it is also a tough question for...

If we are to close the innovation gap between Europe and the US, EU policy must enable all our firms, however big or small, to make the most of their entrepreneurial flair and know-how.(Is Europe losing its innovative edge?)
September 22, 2005... The future of growth and employment in Europe depends on the strength of its innovation. Innovation is the key that opens doors to greater productivity, added value and competitiveness. But innovation is exactly where Europe appears to lag most...

European companies must learn to harness the creativity of their customers and "lead users," instead of relying on manufacturers to develop the next breakthrough product.(Is Europe losing its innovative edge?)(Interview)
September 22, 2005... EBF: In your new book, what do you mean when you say that innovation is becoming democratised? EvH: I mean that product and service users - both individuals and firms - are increasingly able to develop products for themselves. Research...

We underfund start-up companies. We starve growing companies. And we are too risk averse. No wonder Europe is falling behind other economies in creating wealth from innovation.(Is Europe losing its innovative edge?)
September 22, 2005... Europe has a long and illustrious history of innovation. From the railways through to technologies developed for planes and rockets, the continent has achieved much that we take for granted today. The most obvious examples of recent times are...

Policy makers shouldn't be trying to bribe firms into relocating their research laboratories back to Europe with tax "lollipops" and subsidies. Companies must tap into foreign pools of knowledge.(Is Europe losing its innovative edge?)
September 22, 2005... If Glaxo SmithKline announces that it is building its next drug discovery lab in the Research Triangle Park in North Carolina instead of the UK, there are howls of protest from Whitehall to Canary Wharf. If Daimler Chrysler expands its R&D...

Stop pitying entrepreneurs for their failures. If only Europe could start celebrating the risk-takers and the homegrown innovators, we would soon have more of them.(Is Europe losing its innovative edge?)
September 22, 2005... Many of the world's best cars, mobile phones, clothes have been innovated in Europe. Linux and Skype have emerged out of Europe. But the US beats us with Amazon, eBay, Yahoo and Google. Asia beats us in entertainment electronics. So what is the...

Paying lip service to innovation is one thing. But actually measuring it is another. Before individual companies or countries can foster innovation, they need to be able to quantify it.(Is Europe losing its innovative edge?)
September 22, 2005... Innovation is a buzzword that is applied liberally across policy documents. In the race to achieve and sustain innovation leadership, the metrics by which different countries nail their claims to their respective masts differs widely. Here are...

Forget the glorified image of the lone inventor. If European companies are to remain competitive, they need stop focusing on a few creative individuals and start networking.(Is Europe losing its innovative edge?)
September 22, 2005... The smartest, most innovative companies don't rely on their in-house R&D departments to come up with breakthrough products and services. Nor do they rely on a few creative employees. Far from it. They network with suppliers, customers and...

European governments must stop investing in airy visions of innovation and start guestioning the ways in which their own systems and structures are built. Policy making is too often based on outdated belief systems.(Is Europe losing its innovative edge?)
September 22, 2005... The EU has visions of Europe being the most innovative region in the world. But most European economies are stuttering away without much steam. Growth is anaemic. People are losing confidence in the political system, evident in the recent...

Europe hasn't lost the ability to innovate. But its "edge" is being threatened by other countries' greater skills at bridging the commercialisation gap. Without commercialisation, innovation is meaningless.(Is Europe losing its innovative edge?)
September 22, 2005... When it comes to the successful commercialisation of innovation, here are ten big issues that Europe needs to address. These aren't the conclusions of one opinionated British journalist - they are the conclusions of a week-long gathering of...

Doss humour travel?(Cartoon)
September 22, 2005... MA THEORIE EST QU ON EST JAMAIS TROP PRUDENT AVECLES TECHNOLOGIES INNOVANTES BELGIUM "My theory is that you can never be too careful with new technologies." [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ES IST UNS GELUNGEN, EINEN KNOBLAUCH ZU...

Why good companies fail: It's not just weak organisations that spiral into decline and fail. Managerial arrogance and inflexibility can bring even great companies to their knees.(IN DEPTH)
September 22, 2005... Back in 1991, the newly appointed CEO of a large multi-division company asked one of us the question that led to this research. The CEO had read Peters and Waterman's In Search of Excellence some years earlier, and believed strongly in its...

Six sigma comes to marketing: marketing departments have always shrugged off six sigma as a "penny wise, pound foolish" strategy that will kill creativity. But quality-control programmes are starting to creep their way into creative industries - with remarkable results.(IN DEPTH)
September 22, 2005... Six sigma was widely popularised during the nineties by Jack Welch at General Electric. This data-driven approach, which requires that a process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities, was a key part of Welch's...

Why management matters most: when a country or a company starts to fall behind in innovation performance and productivity growth, its leaders should focus on developing new managerial skills rather than chasing promising new technologies. The current dilemma facing the Netherlands is a classic case.(IN DEPTH)
September 22, 2005... Dutch innovation performance and productivity growth is falling behind. Dutch businesses are focusing on restructuring and cost reductions. Dutch politicians have been too concerned with short-term government expenditures. Research at Dutch...

The return of convergence: it had its glory days at the end of the nineties with the advent of the internet. Then it died its death in the early twenties when the bubble burst. Now, thanks to high-speed internet services, convergence is firmly back on the business agenda.(Company overview)
September 22, 2005... Convergence, the aggregation of services from different sectors of activity and aimed at a single client, is a phenomenon that has recently experienced both highs (during the nineties) and lows (after the bursting of the internet bubble in...

The importance of things: businesses aren't based around relationships, as current theories of organisation would have us believe. They are based around physical things. So what are the implications for leaders, managers and employees?
September 22, 2005... One of the most interesting things about life is, precisely, things. Things bring people together. They oblige them to interact, and to enter into exchanges. Every day, organisations and institutions of all sorts - from ministries to museums,...

Reclaiming Drucker: the world's most famous management writer may have spent most of his working life in the US, but he owes many of his ideas to his European origins.(INDEPTH)
September 22, 2005... Peter Drucker has been described as the world's greatest management thinker, and he certainly remains one of the most popular. Now in his 96th year and living in Claremont, California, he has spent most of his working life in the US. Yet he...

How to enthuse your employees.(RESEARCH BRIEFS)
September 22, 2005... Human resource managers spend a great deal of their time dealing with difficult, angry or disgruntled employees. In doing so, they tend to ignore the "walking indifferent", those people who have learned not to expect too much and not to give...

Employee benefits don't make a difference.(RESEARCH BRIEFS)
September 22, 2005... What impact does human resource management have on productivity? New evidence concerning the relationship between human resource management (HRM) and employee effectiveness comes from Lithuania, and is reported in The Impact of Strategic Human...

Closing up shop.(RESEARCH BRIEFS)
September 22, 2005... Closing a factory is never easy, but French multinational Danone has shown that it can be done responsibly. Danone en Ultzama by Josep Lozano, director of the Institute for the Individual, Corporations and Society at ESADE, and Conxita...

Investing in Eastern Europe.(RESEARCH BRIEFS)
September 22, 2005... Inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the countries of Eastern Europe have greatly increased following their accession to the European Union, thanks to the elimination of investment barriers and a perception among investors that...

Smoking can kill your career.(RESEARCH BRIEFS)
September 22, 2005... Are smokers handicapped in terms of career development? According to Nachum Sicherman and Lalith Munasinghe, economists at Columbia University, the answer is a very probable "yes". In their research paper, Wage Dynamics and Unobserved...

Button up your overcoat.(RESEARCH BRIEFS)
September 22, 2005... You don't need to be a psychologist to recognise the effects of weather on human emotions and moods. But how do weather conditions influence financial decisions? A study by Piman Limpaphayom and Pattarake Sarajoti of Chulalongkorn University,...

A dose of collaboration: pharmaceutical company Tyrenco has set itself the goal of growing sales at the same time as cutting operating expenses. But it must do so against the background of two strikingly different corporate cultures in its British and French operations.(CASE STUDY)
September 22, 2005... The result of a merger of two European corporations, Tyrenco discovers, develops and markets innovative pharmaceutical products. One of its goals is to achieve higher sales from the growth of its strategic brands and markets, while cutting...

The man whose office was a lift: he was the founder of the world's largest shoemaker and a pioneer of employee welfare. Morgen Witzel looks at the radical management methods of Tomas Bat'a.(CASE STUDY)
September 22, 2005... The Czech shoemaker, Tomas Bat'a, was once one of the brightest stars in the European business firmament. A classic entrepreneur, he anticipated many modern management movements by decades. Yet until a few years ago, very little was known of...

Paul Bell, senior vice-president of Dell in EMEA, argues that the smartest firms don't brag about how much money they pour into technical R&D. Innovation should start with what the customer really wants, not with proprietary technology.(Insights and opinions from the boardroom and beyond)(Interview)
September 22, 2005... EBF: Many people don't regard Dell as an innovative company. Yet it describes itself as being committed to "affordable innovation." What do you mean? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] PB: Many organisations skew their discussion about innovation...

Sir Terry Leahy, CEO of Tesco, reveals what good leadership is all about. avoid management jargon. don't fall into the trap of dictatorship. develop your staff. and remember that the real leaders of your business are your customers.(LEADERS)
September 22, 2005... Look-up "lead" in the dictionary and you will find dozens of entries. These include the usual words that you would expect - "control", "direct" and so on. But the definition that catches my eye and sums up how we feel about leadership at Tesco...

Kai Peters, chief executive of Ashridge, believes that the European higher education system is about to go through one of the biggest changes in history as a result of the Bologna Declaration. And the most significant impact will be on business studies.(LEADERS)
September 22, 2005... The landscape of European higher education and European business schools is changing rapidly. The Bologna Declaration was introduced in 1999 and subsequent communiques have now been signed by 45 European countries. The signatories have agreed...

Gill Samuels, Pfizer's former executive director for science policy in Europe, says that the science sector needs more ambassadors and role models to help polish up its public image and encourage the next generation of scientists.(LEADERS)
September 22, 2005... Gill Samuels is one of the most significant scientists of her generation. Hailed as "the woman who invented Viagra" and recently honoured by the CBI's First Women awards for her remark able contribution to science, Samuels rose through the...

Jean-Philippe Courtois, president of Microsoft international, believes that technological advancements in the next ten years will outshine those of the past decade. Software is going to completely transform the way we work.(LEADERS)(Interview)
September 22, 2005... EBF: After third-generation mobile phones and broadband, what is the next technological revolution? JPC: More is going to happen over the next ten years than it did in the past ten. By 2015, the world will again experience the kind of...

Dave Richards, MD of Prodrive and a former world rally champion, on how he keeps his [pounds sterling] 110m-turnover automotive group in the fast lane by encouraging "intrapreneurship" and developing a culture of innovation.(LEADERS)
September 22, 2005... Innovation is not a luxury in the world of motor sport. It is a necessity. Whether you race a Formula One car with straight-line speed over tarmac, or a rally car over mud, you must improve its design continuously or be left behind. ...

Dr Theodore Zeldin, fellow of St Antony's College, thinks that today's business leaders lack one fundamental skill: the art of good conversation.(LEADERS)(Interview)
September 22, 2005... EBF: Why should businesses concern themselves with the emotions or the conversations of their employees? [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] TZ: Many CEOs with whom I have spoken say there is now pressure from young recruits to obtain not just a...