Dinesh WeerakkodySustainability: Taking full responsibility
Increasingly, companies and leaders will be assessed not only on immediate results but also on long term impact – the ultimate effects their executive actions have on social wellbeing. This trend has been coming in small waves for years, but is now surging after the financial crisis in the West.
Surround yourself with the best people you can find
Henry Ford once said: “I am not the smartest, but I surround myself with competent people.”
I think it’s safe to say that Henry Ford had more than a mild degree of success. Love him or hate him, he rocked the world. We’ve heard in a variety of ways people saying that a leader should surround himself with people better than him.
According to leadership literature, successful leaders surround themselves with good people, but great leaders surround themselves with people who are even better than they are. But this is something not so simple to achieve.
Invest to grow the skills base
One area that Sri Lanka can make some headway to build up its FDI and reserves in the short term is in the business services outsourcing area. The global out sourcing market is currently worth over $375+ billion and expected to grow to $479.3 billion by 2016 according to research and consulting firm Frost and Sullivan, with India exporting US Dollars 50+ billion worth and China $30 billion, while Sri Lanka’s share was just over US Dollars 60 million.
Economic power shifting to Asia from the West?
Today, as much as China is the centre of global manufacturing, India has become the international hub for global service industries. India’s IT and outsourcing exports amount to over US$ 50 billion.
The economic resurgence of China and India has also made way for the emergence of Thailand, Indonesia, Pakistan and Vietnam as manufacturing bases. This shift of world economic power back to Asia is highlighted in the ADB Key Indicators (for Asia and the Pacific) for 2010.
Most CEOs still carry a 19th Century mindset
Recently I spoke at a seminar titled ‘What’s next for HR?’ where most of the speakers observed that investing in people can transform companies and that changes are taking faster than we can perceive and internalise.
HR: The conscience keepers in the business
here was a time when corporate governance was confined to the management books. Not knowing what it really meant was not an issue and most management teams liked it that way. However, after the financial crisis the responsibilities of management and boards have become challenging with regulators and investors demanding for new governance structures and rules that they want companies to practice and adopt.
Why is FDI so important?
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) generally refers to long-term participation by one country in another country. It usually involves participation in a JV, capital transfer, transfer of technology and expertise.
There are two types of FDI: inward foreign direct investment and outward foreign direct investment, resulting in a net FDI inflow (positive or negative) and stock of foreign direct investment.
“You need to get employers and schools close together to produce skills”: Professor Cappelli
Professor Peter Cappelli is George W. Taylor Professor of Management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania in the United States. Cappelli is recognised as one of the world’s most important authorities on human capital. His work focuses on human resource practices, talent and performance management, and public policy related to employment.
“Regulation puts enormous strictures on a business”
Q: After the financial crisis, regulators and funds are now totally hung up with new governance structures and rules that they want companies to practice and adopt. This new governance regime has brought about new challenges for businesses. What are they?
A: The first challenge is uncertainty – there are many new regulations already, but no one knows just how many more are coming, or how constraining they will be. In the UK, for example, banks have until 2019 to implement the ‘ring-fencing’ required by Vickers. And in the US, the Dodd-Frank Act will take many years to be worked through in terms of the actual regulatory changes it requires. And of course the target is moving all the time.
Hard truths about why jobs are disappearing
What is the most important economic question in the world today? One contender would certainly be the future of jobs.
Since the 2008 economic crisis, unemployment globally has continued to remain very high. It is estimated that globally 205 million people are officially unemployed, young people have been specifically hit and the routine white-collar jobs have declined significantly.
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