Alba Puig is 23 and recently graduated in mathematics and telecommunications. This summer she will join the Young Talent Program (YTP), putting her on the threshold of an MBA.

What does a recently graduated 23-year-old student seek from IESE? For Alba Puig the key is to broaden her professional outlook. "I’ve spent six years studying and acquiring what is basically technical knowledge and I need the tools to figure out why some projects are successful and others are not," she says.

Puig is clearheaded and ambitious and insists that there’s no time like the present to continue her studies. "If you don’t learn from the outset how a company works, someone else will do it better than you and you’ll find it harder to advance within an organization," she says. "Furthermore, I’ve studied for two difficult degrees simultaneously and so I need to take advantage of this habit and ability now. That’s why having access to these studies is invaluable."

Nurturing Talent

Puig opted for IESE through the relationship that MBA courses maintain with universities. "The only thing I was clear about was that I wanted to study at one of the best schools in the world. But the fact that IESE came looking for us and asked about our abilities in our third year is something that I regard as unique."

"They told us about the option of attending the Summer School and it seemed to me the best of way of finding out if I liked the business world and the methodology. In this regard, the best thing about IESE is that it doesn’t matter whether or not you’ve studied finance. They look for people with the potential to develop and you see this in the classes. If IESE didn’t select its students so well, it wouldn’t be the school that it is."

After her experience at the Summer School she realized, "the next step was the YTP, to start working for a company and then take part in the Next Steps Seminar for the next two summers," after which she will stop work and join the 2016 MBA course. "I think I’ll find it hard to leave my job after two years and I expect the YTP to maintain my thirst for knowledge and to progress in my career and come back to IESE."

What effect will big data have on the new order of communication technologies and on the media? What direction are new telecommunications taking? How useful can this new data be for developing smart cities? These were some of the questions discussed at the 19th Telecoms, Digital Media and Information Society Industry Meeting held on June 11 on IESE’s Madrid campus.

“Everything that we do leaves a digital trace but we are making little use of this data,” said Elena Alfaro, who works in innovation at the bank BBVA. She reminded the audience that, thanks to this data, “we can now see what was invisible,” and this can be very useful for companies when it comes to making decisions. Alfaro was one of the participants in the Cities in Motion panel. “Cities are beginning to lose control of how they manage the data generated by their citizens,” said Sascha Haselmayer, CEO of Citymart.

More competitive cities

For Enrique Sánchez Nuevo, an executive at Ferrovial, big data has a series of potential uses in cities, such as transparency, personalized services, efficiency and the development of new business models. “All of this will make the city more competitive, both in terms of productivity and savings on providing some services,” he said. He believes that the idea of intelligent cities implies a change in the way that they are managed. “The citizens will make the running,” he said.

María Serrano of Schneider Electric agreed. “There is strong competition between cities to improve the services they provide, but in order to compete they need to collaborate,” she said. The citizens themselves are the main agents in the urban ecosystem and it is they who participate in the planning and management of municipal services.

Juan Manuel Barrionuevo discussed some of the main themes of the IESE project Cities in Motion. “The challenge for cities in the future will be to combine technology with smart governance, because the technology per se isn’t worth anything,” he said.

Interactive media

Eli Noam, director of the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information, discussed how big data is changing the media. “We still think of television in linear terms, but nowadays everything is interactive,” he said. He predicted that the media would be more visual and would have a greater impact as technology becomes cheaper.

Another characteristic of new media will be the degree of content specialization, with greater audience participation and segmentation. “The fourth television generation will be more dynamic and not just from a technological point of view. It will also offer the viewer a series of possibilities that were barely imaginable even a few years ago,” he said.

The talk “Competing for Value” looked at the new business opportunities that big data offers entertainment and communication companies. María Villanueva, director of Sony Pictures TV, said that the new content niches are on the web.

María Ferreras of YouTube highlighted the connectivity, interactivity and quality of some of the elements that characterize the so-called “Generation C:” a new generation of users who are permanently connected to new technologies and new devices.

Ricardo Sevilla , responsible for Digital Media at the Spanish national broadcaster RTVE,  sees hybrid television is one of the great challenges of the future. “The work of public media is essential in this process in order to guarantee certain content,” he said. “So far, second screens have not pushed out traditional television,” said Xavier Redon of Abertis.

Connectivity is key

Some operators in the sector also took part in the meeting. “The process of change opens up the opportunity to develop new business models but it is essential to have high-speed connections for this to happen,” said Rafael Miranda, director of strategy at Vodafone Spain.

Francisco Salcedo, head of new business at Telefónica, said telecommunications companies need to reinvent themselves, evolve and attract new clients. “The digital user has abandoned traditional devices and we either follow them or lose them,” he said. Eduardo Taulet, CEO of Yoigo, said that operators have to guarantee the supply of networks with sufficient capacity to support these types of technological applications and at a reasonable cost to the user.

Spain’s secretary of state for telecommunications and the information society, Víctor Calvo-Sotelo,  made the closing remarks at the meeting which was led by IESE professors Joan E. Ricart and Josep Valor.

IESE alumni met in London this week for a special Entrepreneurs Breakfast Meeting on Impact Investing. During the event, participants discussed the challenges of sustainable social investment, including specific hurdles that need to be overcome to achieve growth in the social investment marketplace. Some 50 IESE graduates and guests were in attendance.

Alumnus Patrick Kelly (MBA '01) of Shared Impact and Roxbury Partners opened the event by introducing the panelists: IESE Prof. Heinrich Liechtenstein, Oliver Karius of LGT Venture Philanthropy, and Nick O’Donohoe of Big Society Capital. Karius spoke about his organization's social investment experience, while O’Donohoe discussed Big Society Capital's early steps and experience in carrying out its mission of developing a sustainable social investment marketplace in the UK.

The event took place at Deutsche Bank's offices in the city. It underscored IESE's ongoing research and educational initiatives in the area of impact investing. Impact investing seeks to fund businesses not only for financial gain, but also to create a positive impact on society.

With grim prospects at home due to the economic crisis, many executives are volunteering to accept overseas assignments. However, gone are the days of the cushy relocation package, making such assignments less enticing than they used to be. Another downside is that executives feel less inclined to decline an expat assignment, fearing reprisals should they say no.

These are some of the conclusions of a study by IESE and Ernst & Young, based on interviews and surveys of executives from 30 multinational companies, most of them Spanish.

Consequences of the Crisis

Turning down an overseas assignment carries the distinct possibility of either losing your job or seriously limiting your career prospects, according to those surveyed. The fact that there is a line of other executives waiting to take your place adds to their worries. The effects of the crisis are also felt in expat packages. Seven years ago, the major financial incentives being offered to expats were enough to lure candidates abroad.

Now, however, an expat assignment is no longer the road to riches. There is hardly much difference from what they would earn at home, unless the job abroad represents a genuine promotion. Having said that, extra pay is still being offered to reflect a higher cost of living in the destination country, or hazards associated with a particular assignment.

Read full article on the IESE Insight website.

On Wednesday June 12, IESE Prof. Sebastian Reiche led a session at the school’s New York Center on "How to Make Global Mobility Work."

Global work assignments remain a crucial staffing and talent management tool for multinational companies and these assignments come in increasingly different guises and forms. PwC estimates that global assignments will increase by 50 percent by 2020.

Prof. Reiche, whose specialist field is multiculturalism and working across borders, discussed why China and Brazil are the most challenging destinations as well as examined the core mobility challenges of cost, a shortage of suitable candidates, dual career issues and the problems of family adjustments.

He then went on to dismantle four myths about global mobility: the expatriate is an homogenous species; expatriation is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; the global employee is a senior manager and, finally, headquarters is the center of the universe.

In conclusion, Prof. Reiche proposed a number of recommendations to improve the management of global mobility.

What effect will big data have on the new order of communication technologies and on the media? What direction are new telecommunications taking? How useful can this new data be for developing smart cities? These were some of the questions discussed at the 19th Telecoms, Digital Media and Information Society Industry Meeting held on June 11 on IESE’s Madrid campus.

“Everything that we do leaves a digital trace but we are making little use of this data,” said Elena Alfaro, who works in innovation at the bank BBVA. She reminded the audience that, thanks to this data, “we can now see what was invisible,” and this can be very useful for companies when it comes to making decisions. Alfaro was one of the participants in the Cities in Motion panel. “Cities are beginning to lose control of how they manage the data generated by their citizens,” said Sascha Haselmayer, CEO of Citymart.

More competitive cities

For Enrique Sánchez Nuevo, an executive at Ferrovial, big data has a series of potential uses in cities, such as transparency, personalized services, efficiency and the development of new business models. “All of this will make the city more competitive, both in terms of productivity and savings on providing some services,” he said. He believes that the idea of intelligent cities implies a change in the way that they are managed. “The citizens will make the running,” he said.

María Serrano of Schneider Electric agreed. “There is strong competition between cities to improve the services they provide, but in order to compete they need to collaborate,” she said. The citizens themselves are the main agents in the urban ecosystem and it is they who participate in the planning and management of municipal services.

Juan Manuel Barrionuevo discussed some of the main themes of the IESE project Cities in Motion. “The challenge for cities in the future will be to combine technology with smart governance, because the technology per se isn’t worth anything,” he said.

Interactive media

Eli Noam, director of the Columbia Institute for Tele-Information, discussed how big data is changing the media. “We still think of television in linear terms, but nowadays everything is interactive,” he said. He predicted that the media would be more visual and would have a greater impact as technology becomes cheaper.

Another characteristic of new media will be the degree of content specialization, with greater audience participation and segmentation. “The fourth television generation will be more dynamic and not just from a technological point of view. It will also offer the viewer a series of possibilities that were barely imaginable even a few years ago,” he said.

The talk “Competing for Value” looked at the new business opportunities that big data offers entertainment and communication companies. María Villanueva, director of Sony Pictures TV, said that the new content niches are on the web.

María Ferreras of YouTube highlighted the connectivity, interactivity and quality of some of the elements that characterize the so-called “Generation C:” a new generation of users who are permanently connected to new technologies and new devices.

Ricardo Sevilla , responsible for Digital Media at the Spanish national broadcaster RTVE,  sees hybrid television is one of the great challenges of the future. “The work of public media is essential in this process in order to guarantee certain content,” he said. “So far, second screens have not pushed out traditional television,” said Xavier Redon of Abertis.

Connectivity is key

Some operators in the sector also took part in the meeting. “The process of change opens up the opportunity to develop new business models but it is essential to have high-speed connections for this to happen,” said Rafael Miranda, director of strategy at Vodafone Spain.

Francisco Salcedo, head of new business at Telefónica, said telecommunications companies need to reinvent themselves, evolve and attract new clients. “The digital user has abandoned traditional devices and we either follow them or lose them,” he said. Eduardo Taulet, CEO of Yoigo, said that operators have to guarantee the supply of networks with sufficient capacity to support these types of technological applications and at a reasonable cost to the user.

Spain’s secretary of state for telecommunications and the information society, Víctor Calvo-Sotelo,  made the closing remarks at the meeting which was led by IESE professors Joan E. Ricart and Josep Valor, and by Santiago Miralles.

"I’ve learned a lot from these case studies. Not necessarily what they wanted me to learn, but they’ve made me think. It’s great to get away and get inspiration," says Yunli Lou, managing director of the private equity firm Milestone Capital in Shanghai.

Yunli Lou was one of 44 leaders of companies based in China who were on IESE’s campus last week for the Barcelona module of the Global CEO Program for China. The program is a joint IESE, Harvard Business School and the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) initiative, featuring three residential modules. The first module was held in Shanghai, with the Harvard module still to come.

Yunli Lou established the firm 11 years ago. Before that, she worked for Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch in New York and Hong Kong. Her firm has three funds with $1bn to invest in high-growth, expansion-stage Chinese entrepreneurial companies – not start-ups. "We help companies with capital. management, strategy and access to capital markets," she says, adding that she is one of few women at her level in the private equity business.

She found out about the program because she is a Harvard graduate and has enjoyed a long friendship with one of the Harvard professors involved in it, Krishna Palepu.

Norman Lui, CEO Lumi holdings Inc., whose company makes medical and cosmetics products, says he heard about program from a friend he met playing poker. "The program is very international while being oriented to Chinese entrepreneurs," says Lui, whose firm’s top product is a collagen drink, a fruit juice drink containing collagen peptide extracted from fish skin.

"The professors are top-notch and it’s interesting to have the classes taught in three locations. There are lots of opportunities to network and to learn from each other. It’s a unique and well-designed program," he said. "In this module, the case studies are more European. I was educated in the U.S. and many of their values and business values are very U.S.-centric. I believe that, because of its long history, Europe is closer to the model that China should learn from in terms of leadership and how companies should be governed."

On June 14, Ignacio Izquierdo, CEO of Aviva in Spain, gave the final session of the EMBA Global Leadership Series of the academic year 2012-13 on IESE’s Madrid campus.
 
With a background in marketing and finance, Izquierdo has always emphasized the importance of professional development. “For me the most important thing is to have a varied education. I was interested in seeing different sectors and ways of managing in order to have a broader vision and make better choices in my career. Another key factor has been being able to speak English well and to get experience abroad. Without that I’m sure I’d never have assumed positions of responsibility.”

His career began in consultancy while launching a family business. “I was lucky to start out doing both at once. The consultancy let me get to know a wide range of companies and sectors, and launching my own business taught me a lot about the problems of managing a family business. They were both tremendously enriching experiences but in the end I decided to work for someone else,” he said. He told students not to be afraid of change. “It’s really important not to get stuck in a job that you already know well and it’s important to take on challenges that at first might seem like a backward step but which later will help you to move forward.”

It was with this mentality that he joined the Santander Group in 1995 where he lived through some of the most intense and exciting moments of his career, taking on new challenges almost every year. He worked for a number of companies in the group in Spain, progressively acquiring responsibilities and recognition, and later moved to London to manage the bank’s assets in the United Kingdom. “I learned a lot from Santander. There were some difficult periods, such as the first few months in England, but all told it was a journey full of successes and challenges that I have gained a lot from. One of the most important things to learn is that success is never your own, it’s based on the team, and on who trusts and supports you.”

When he returned to London Izquierdo took what he says is the most important decision of his life. “I decided to leave the bank because, although there were new challenges and projects on the table, it seemed to me the right moment to get to know other cultures and other ways of working. And it was the right decision.”

He joined Aviva, the world’s sixth biggest insurance group, in 2008 as CEO in Spain and, as always, has continued to learn from this new project. “There’s much room for improvement in management in the insurance sector but the big advantage is that it has a long-term vision, which is something that our society needs,” he said.

Izquierdo recommended to the EMBA students that as leaders they should have two parallel agendas, both equally important: “the business agenda, with all the aims and figures that that implies, and the people agenda, based on  meritocracy, talent management development and communication within the company. If you don’t take care of one of these, it’s impossible for the other to work well.”

Unemployment, productivity, contracts, collective bargaining and labor reform were all discussed at the session in the Continuous Education Program session titled “Rebuilding the labor market” held on IESE’s Madrid campus on June 17.

The session, organized by the Alumni Association, was part of the Economics and Society Cycle. IESE Prof. Rolf Campos acted as moderator.

Prof. Juan J. Toribio lamented the rigidity of the Spanish labor market, which he believes has a direct impact on unemployment. According to Toribio, this rigidity consists of a minimum inter-professional salary, collective bargaining, union pressure and restrictive agreements at company level, among others. “We have made some advances with reforms,” he said, adding that Spain was unable to adjust when it needed to and was now paying the price. 
 
A Luxury for the Rich

He believes that unemployment is “a luxury that only wealthy societies can afford” in the sense that only wealthy societies can afford to pay unemployment benefit. Toribio criticized the culture of fear generated by judicial rulings in labor relations in Spain and called for a more flexible labor market in order to reduce unemployment and create new jobs. He also demolished some myths, such as that technology destroys jobs. “Anything we can do to get rid of the restrictions that have brought us six million unemployed is positive,” he said.

Prof. Sandalio Gómez discussed the government’s labor reforms that were introduced last year. “It’s a deep reform and the best since 1994, but the effects are slow in coming. It is very difficult to create jobs in this climate and we can only do it if everyone is involved,” he said.

Gómez said a “cultural change” on the part of employers and workers was essential if the reforms are to bear fruit. He wanted the new law to go further to encourage part-time contracts and contracts that involve training and apprenticeships. “It’s astonishing that, in a country with 50 percent youth unemployment, such contracts aren’t more common,” he said.

During his talk he criticized the prevalence of collective bargaining in the labor market, which he says slows down further reform. In spite of improvements, Gómez was in no doubt that “labor reform won’t solve the unemployment problem” and suggested other measures, such as encouraging entrepreneurs, further control of unemployment benefits and possibly doing away with the minimum wage.

He also suggested that redundancy payments should be reduced to 20 days per year worked with a ceiling of one year, as well getting rid of judicial proceedings in changing labor conditions and redundancies, both individual and collective.

This month's edition on Eye on IESE: The Harvard-IESE Committee is now in its 50th year, 10 years of the IESE's Private Investors Network, The 17th Food and Beverage Industry Meeting, Ermenegildo Zegna and Robin Sharma at the first IESE Fast Forward Program.

A quarter of Interbrand's top 100 global brands for 2012 were tech-related - a testament to the growing value of the digital revolution.

As this ranking indicates, the leading brands of tomorrow will likely emerge from new sectors, rather than tweaks to existing ones, say IESE Professor José Luis Nueno and Gloria Andreu.

In their paper, the authors reflect on successful new brands, the sectors of the future, the opportunities presented by a multichannel strategy and the role that the image of the country of origin plays in a brand's success, highlighting Spain as an example.

Learning From Digital Leaders

Google, Amazon, eBay, Facebook and Yahoo were not as relevant 15 years ago as they are today. What do these five preeminent players have in common, aside from being upstarts in the digital sector?

These companies all meet consumer needs in ways that are efficient and, so far, free. They are serial innovators: For example, hardly a month goes by without Google offering some new service. They have also had a transformative effect on their sector.

In short, these brands have succeeded because they brought about a radical change in how consumer needs and aspirations are being met. They ask themselves what consumers will demand in the near future, and if it is possible to be pioneers in these sectors, hence making their brands relevant.

A 2010 study by the Future Agenda program highlighted the key issues for the next decade, which served to identify the 20 most relevant sectors of the future, such as connectivity, payment methods, health and recycling.

For most brands, possibilities exist to meet genuine underlying needs in these areas. Companies can conceivably become global leaders in these sectors or in others that might become more relevant in the future.

Read full article on the IESE Insight website.

Spain’s current economic challenges call for deep reforms in public sector management, in order to boost efficiency, effectiveness and competitiveness. In pursuit of this goal, the Center for Public Leadership and Government at IESE will host its first Public Sector Conference on June 24 on the school’s Madrid campus. The event will be held under the theme "Guidelines for Improving Public Sector Management."

During an intensive day of sessions, participants and speakers will analyze keys for defining a new model of public management for Spain, with presentations and round table discussions such as "Public Administration Reform: Master Guidelines," "Regional and Administrative Keys of the New Public Sector Model," "Rationalization of the Jurisdictional System, Efficient Management and Reform of Local Entities," "Market Transparency and Unity: New Political and Economic Goals," and "Economic Diplomacy and Country Vision."

The event will include the participation of high-level representatives from the Spanish government, including Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría and Minister of Finance and Public Administration Cristóbal Montoro.

IESE professors and representatives will provide presentations and act as moderators during the conference. They include Antonio Argandoña, Francisco Iniesta, José Manuel González Páramo, José Ramón Pin, Juan José Toribio, as well as the executive director of IESE’s Center for Leadership and Public Management, Pablo García-Manzano.

For more information on the conference.

For more than two decades, IESE has been sharing knowledge and its educational vision with future managers and entrepreneurs around the world. But the school has also sought to go further. How? By preparing professors from other business schools so they can add value to their institutions through stronger teaching and leadership capabilities.

This aim is carried out through the International Faculty Program (IFP). The 2013 program concludes on June 21 on the school's Barcelona campus. The director of the program is IESE Prof. Javier Santomá.  
 
IPADE Prof. Alberto Ibarra described the experience as: "50 years of IESE experience condensed into three weeks, as well as a great opportunity to learn and meet colleagues from all over the world."
 
Thirty-one participants from 16 countries took part in the intensive program, which includes case studies, academic sessions, exercises, coaching and interactive networking activities. The IFP seeks to improve the overall quality of management education worldwide by giving participants a general management perspective applied to teaching and allowing them to identify their own strengths and areas for improvement.
 
Among the highlights this year was a session led by Visiting Professor Kirstie McAllum of the Department of Managing People in Organizations. During the session "Collaborative Classroom Communication," Prof. McAllum removed the chairs in the classroom to create an atmosphere that improved participant interaction, eliminated barriers and helped boost communication skills.
 
"The IFP is a focal point for experiences from all over the world. It also has a strong and rigorous academic structure, with highly experienced professors who share knowledge that is going to be critical for our future personal and professional development," Ibarra said.
 
Syed Imran Saqib, professor of the Institute of Business Administration in Karachi, Pakistan, said that "given that the IBA is undergoing a period of strong growth, the program has given me new ideas and skills that I can apply immediately when I return to Pakistan."
 
One of the most enriching aspects of the IFP is the opportunity students have to present cases in class, whether they be those from their own school or from other institutions. For Saqib, this experience stood out in particular. "To present my own case in front of such an experienced audience and hear their opinions and advice has been one of the highlights of the program. In fact, IESE and its faculty are offering a great service to the world by sharing so many years of experience in graduate-level teaching."
 
The program also includes special off-campus activities such as visits to the nearby Montserrat Monastery and Oliver Conti winery, which generate camaraderie and opportunities to communicate among the participants who reflect diverse cultures. "Sharing this experience with participants from such different countries has helped me understand that - no matter what our areas of expertise, teaching environments or years of experience - we all have the same goal of improving our profession," said Gloria Sanmartín, CETT professor.
 
Over the next few years, the group will stay in contact through various channels, including social networks. A new IFP newsletter, to be published bi-annually, is also in the works, with the collaboration of alumni Aránzazu Narbona (IFP '12 and PDD '12). In September 2014, the book "Towards Effective Teaching: Perspectives on Refocusing Management Education on the Person," authored by members of the 2013 IFP class, is set to be published.  The book "is a reflection of what we have learned on the program and in our role as educators," said Kemi Ogunyemi, professor at Lagos Business School in Nigeria.

For more information on the IFP, visit.

The cloud is changing the way we receive, use and disseminate information, says Prof. Eli Noam of Columbia Business School. As well as convenience to users, the cloud raises moral and legal questions, as well as the need for revenue flow apart from advertising. Data can be personalized and privacy and security issues can be offset against the increased scope for data protection.

Watch video.

Spain’s public administration is “not much bigger” than other European countries though “this doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have to slim down.” This was one of the conclusions expressed by the undersecretary of the presidency, Jaime Pérez Renovales, during the opening session of the 1st Public Sector Conference held on June 24 on IESE’s Madrid campus.

Under the title “Ways of Improving Public Management”, the meeting debated some of the key aspects of developing a new model of public management in Spain. IESE’s Center for Public Leadership and Government organized the event which was sponsored by Altadis with the collaboration of KPMG.

Pérez Renovales highlighted the work of civil servants in preparing the report for the Commission for the Reform of Public Administration that was presented to the government a few days earlier. The document includes 218 proposals for rationalizing public sector expenditure and reforming the administration.

Improving productivity

Pérez Renovales listed the four axes on which the reform of the administration is based: budgetary discipline and transparency; rationalization of the public sector; improving efficiency and a better relationship between the administration, public and business.

 He said the implementation of these reforms “was going to be more fluid than people imagine because it is going to be implemented with common sense.” He said that reform of local and autonomous government administration was essential, adding that the reforms were being carried out on the basis of “pragmatic principles.” “We have to maintain quality of service at a lower cost to the citizen,” he said.

 “This is an ambitious and complex project which will involve many changes but in which all of the administrations have to be involved and which all political parties need to support,” he concluded.

Juan Arrizabalaga, managing director of Altadis, agreed. “Reform is always necessary and never more so than in times of crisis,” he said. And he described the reform process undertaken by the government in recent months as ambitious.

The word of the day was “transparency,” in particular in regard to the new political and economic challenges of the single market. The undersecretary of economy and competitiveness, Miguel Temboury, said it was a matter of urgency that the Single Market Law, currently with the State Council, be passed.

A fragmented market

“The domestic market is very fragmented,” said one speaker, who blamed this partly on the bureaucracy of the autonomous communities. Temboury admitted that passing this law, one of the most ambitious of the parliament, is very difficult.

The emeritus president of the Constitutional Court, Álvaro Rodríguez Bereijo, said that “unity in diversity is the principle underpinning the state of autonomous governments but we haven’t developed territorial cooperation nor have we overcome the political differences that allowed us to arrive at the 1978 Constitution.”

He warned of the potential lawsuits and conflicts before the Constitutional Court that derived from the law and said: “What we need to create are the necessary channels of a constitutional culture to resolve these conflicts.”

Manuel Silva, a member of the Council of State, called on autonomous governments to resolve administrative conflicts. “We need to harmonize autonomous policy.” He called for a pact between all the big parties in order to advance along this road.

Regarding the Transparency Law, Silva said that “citizens will have more responsibility” in the public sphere, a point with which Temboury agreed. “I don’t believe that transparency is linked to popular revolt against the political system. The world is changing rapidly, as is the way in which democracies function and the relationship between citizens and their governments,” said Rodríguez Bereijo.

In the closing speech, the inland revenue and public administration minister, Cristóbal Montoro, said he was against carrying out major reforms of the state in order to avoid duplication of public administrations and reiterated his conviction that these changes can be achieved through political agreements.

He also said that the reform of public administration was “ambitious, overdue and much wanted” in order to create an administration for the 21st century. He said he was convinced that all of the administrations would approve the political project.

He said that the new laws would “eliminate duplicated services and get rid of red tape.” And he reviewed the indicators that suggest that Spain is facing a different economic reality: a positive current account balance, access to financial markets and inflation that will soon fall below 1 percent.

Optimism, prudence and, above all, a determination to face the future are traits that have marked the professional career of Rafael del Pino, president of Ferrovial. Del Pino traced his career and reflected on the current economic situation at Alumni Day, held June 27 on IESE’s Madrid campus.

In spite of the deep crisis in Spain and the rest of the eurozone, Del Pino said he was convinced that the region will prosper in the long run. “Although we are experiencing difficult and uncertain times, we are a society that wants to progress. We are almost at the end of the crisis, but certainly we will get there.”

Trained as a civil engineer, Del Pino took the helm of Ferrovial in 2000. Founded 61 years ago, Ferrovial is one of Spain’s largest multinationals, with operations in diverse countries including Canada, the United States, United Kingdom, Poland, Colombia and Chile.

Del Pino said that two main criteria that govern global companies are legal security and market transparency. During a chat with IESE Prof. Santiago Álvarez de Mon, he also talked about two important lessons passed on to him by his father, who founded the company: the importance of teamwork and capacity for synthesis.

Sustainable system

Ferrovial’s president was clear about several aspects of the crisis that is currently punishing the eurozone.  For example, Western European countries cannot guarantee current benefits, given demographic data. “The pension system is unsustainable. More services are needed, as well as greater efficiency, and we should review the size of the government,” he said.

IESE professors José Manuel Campa and Javier Díaz-Giménez also analyzed today’s economic situation.

“To grow, reforms are needed. But it is very difficult to carry these out if people are not willing to make certain sacrifices,” said Prof. Campa, who warned of dangers that “extreme economic policies” have had on the eurozone over the last few years.

“Growth with an interest rate of zero is impossible and this is what we’ve had for the last four years,” he said.

Prof. Díaz-Giménez noted that one of Europe’s problems is the lack of a plan that fosters confidence. “Job creation should be a priority objective of economic policy,” he said, as well as fulfilling deficit reduction goals.

Nevertheless, “we are starting to see a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel,” he said, signaled by a trade balance surplus and slowing down of job losses.

During the event, IESE alumni who graduated in 1988 – 25 years ago – were honored. IESE’s Dean Jordi Canals said that alumni are “essential” for maintaining the spirit of the school. “IESE is like a river that tries to give life to all the lands it touches,” he said.

“We should keep giving the best of ourselves to society because the best is yet to come,” said Tomás Garcia Madrid, president of the Regional Alumni Chapter in Madrid, in his concluding remarks.

Which of these companies would you say is the most customer-centric: Starbucks or Apple? The answer, according to the latest issue of IESE Insight magazine, is neither.

For all their customer-friendly services and gadgets, these two companies are "leaving huge amounts of money on the table by failing to take advantage of" some key principles of customer centricity, argues Peter Fader, one of the authors writing in the cover story on "The Rise of the Customer Centric Firm."

IESE Prof. Julián Villanueva, who guest edited this issue, writes in his article that companies that don’t pay attention to customer-centric issues, such as estimating the value of what their customers are worth, risk making some bad choices.

"They may spend too much on acquiring customers who are ultimately unprofitable or who do not remain loyal to the brand. They may waste money on activities that have little or no influence on consumer behavior or buying decisions. They focus exclusively on overall revenue, without considering the impact of customer acquisition and retention on the bottom line."

This is especially important as more and more people turn to the Internet to purchase goods and services. In light of the growing role of technology in service delivery, in another article A. Parasuraman revisits the well-known SERVQUAL scale 30 years after he codeveloped it, and provides a complementary framework to give firms’ service efforts much-needed direction and focus in this age of big data.

As well as reconceptualizing our customer management models, Tarun Khanna and Krishna Palepu stress the need to change our definition of what makes a market "emerging."

IESE’s Josep Tàpies and Lucía Ceja highlight the importance of psychological ownership, based on their studies of family businesses. Strong emotional ties, they say, boost productivity and performance.

This has certainly been the case for AJE’s Carlos Añaños, who tells IESE Prof. J.L. Nueno that the global growth of his family-run beverage business is thanks to this sense of belonging to a cohesive team.

IESE Insight is a quarterly research-based magazine, published in separate English and Spanish editions. Its premium content is linked to articles from the IESE Insight knowledge portal, which contains research and teaching materials, opinion articles, business indices, audiovisual materials and an extensive database of more than 20,000 scholarly references.

Go to the IESE Insight Review website.

The art of negotiation isn’t easy, but it’s a skill that can be improved with practice if you have a solid foundation and adequate preparation. One of the keys for achieving success is applying a dynamic and creative focus to the process.

In an article in issue 15 of IESE’s management review IESE Insight, IESE Prof. Kandarp Mehta explains that success in a negotiation depends basically on the level of creativity reflected in the initial offer and following counteroffers. What’s more, creativity in counteroffers becomes critical when it comes to reaching an agreement, he argues.

According to Prof. Mehta, when an offer is creative, “the parties can move from choosing from available alternatives to creating other new ones. They put aside the typical obsession with immediate benefits to enter into a mutually favorable agreement.”

He also adds: “A creative initial offer that includes elements beyond those related with prices gives the other party more flexibility in the negotiation, as well as vital information on possibilities for creating value.”

To help executives improve their bargaining skills, IESE offers the Short Focused Program High Performance Negotiator, led by IESE Prof. Juan Roure. The program will be held July 22-24 in Barcelona.

IESE's 5th annual International Conference of Work & Family takes place July 1-3, with a focus on the management of work, family and personal life in the rapidly changing context of the 21st century. The conference will be opened by professors Nuria Chinchilla, director of IESE's International Center for Work and Family (ICWF) and Mireia las Heras, academic director of the conference.

Scholars from around the world will come together to analyze topics such as corporate family responsibility; the benefits of flexible work arrangements and developing evidence based work-life research assessments and organizational interventions.

Research tracks at this year's edition of the conference include work-family and the age of austerity; work-family policies and culture; dual-income couples; and work life and women's careers.

The event is sponsored by the school's ICWF and is this year specifically interested in leadership perspectives on management, as well as new approaches to parenthood and society.

A lot of useful information is buried inside Big Data and the question is knowing how to mine it in order to extract the information that will improve the quality of analysis. Organizations need to change their culture if they are to exploit this new resource and they need to incentivize managers to understand technology and use data to drive decisions, says Krishnan Parasuraman, CTO Big Data, Digital Media, IBM.

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