There is that great idea, mainly defended by the big consulting and recruiting firms, that in an information and knowledge based economy, the most important thing for companies is attracting and retaining outstanding talented guys.

Obviously I will not say that is not important, but in my opinion a successful and innovative company cannot be built just from the accumulation of high talented people, as a great sports team can't be constructed only by the accumulation of great players.

It is more important to build teams of people that achieve the goals according to the company's entrepreneurial vision. It is necessary to create organizations where everybody (with outstanding talent or not) can develop their best personal capabilities and that these capacities are addressed to achieve the corporate goals and mission. The company efforts must be addressed to design an organisational system that generates and uses talent from everyone in the company.

Trying to get the best from our people through corporate team building policies, establishing a concrete corporate culture and values, making our company a place where people want to work because it is a good place to stay and develop their capacities, is the best way to compete in the knowledge economy. That will keep us out of the obligation to constantly seek for the "prima donnas" and entering in the retribution auctions.

We have to take into account that, nowadays, the real talented and creative people, like to work or engage themselves in projects where they can develop their capacities, they can be implicated in the organizational goals and vision, and where they are treated with respect and dignity. Definitively, they want to be happy doing their jobs. And we have to build organizations where they can find that.

Posted by Francesc Llobet at 8:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In two prior articles we talked about the come-back of Internet based business models - the so called dot com companies-, at least in the US. So far, we have pointed out two factors that would explain this situation: the spectacular increase in advertising revenues and the fact that almost everybody is already connected to the Internet and, increasingly, with broadband connections.

A third factor that supports this new dot com momentum is the spectacular decrease in the infrastructure cost of developing an Internet business compared with the past years. Some years ago the amount of hardware and software investment to start web business was considerable, specially if the business model required a high critical mass of users in the system. Today, the reduction in hardware costs, the existence of open source and free software, and the possibility to access to a full range of software applications in the ASP model, have lead the infrastructure costs of Internet businesses to a fraction of what it used to be.

The same reflection can be done about the cost of supporting a high traffic volume in a website. This was also an important part of the cost of starting web business and maintaining it. Nevertheless, the huge competition among Internet services providers (ISP) and the constant drop in data transfer costs make again that maintaining a high traffic volume site at this moment costs a fraction of what it was some years ago.

Definitively, all this elements configure an scenario where the barriers to start web business have considerably diminished.

Posted by Francesc Llobet at 12:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Days ago I received an advertising mail from an information and labor advising magazine, which main claim was “to obtain the best from your employees and to safeguard your rights as an entrepreneur”. Interesting I thought...

Human resources?

Surprisingly, among other subjects that would allow me to obtain the best from my employees, it offered solutions to solve problems as “workers abuse in requesting many permissions” or to end “the abuse of Internet and the email in my company (employees waste hours and hours using the computer for particular aims)”.

So, thank you very much for the information, but with this industrial economy approach, where people were not so important and really treated as "human resources", neither I will obtain the best from my employees and collaborators nor, surely, I will succeed as an entrepreneur in the knowledge economy.

People Management!

If the entrepreneur's job must be to control if her collaborators surf or not the Internet for personal purposes, or if they stay one hour more or less in the office (not working, that it's not the same), that means she is not doing what she should: establishing a vision, defining concrete objectives for each one of her collaborators, giving them tools and motivating and implying them in the achievement of those goals.

And if after achieving the objectives they can solve some particular subject surfing the Internet or take some morning off, well, better for them. They will be happier in our company and more motivated. People are not human resources anymore, at least for companies that want to succeed in the global knowledge economy, where success depends on creative thinking, innovation and new ways of doing things.

Innovation is not only to invent a new technology or a new product. Innovation must be in every single part of our company. And obviously organization and people management is a crucial one.

Posted by Francesc Llobet at 7:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)