Managerial Insights
Building the Future with Demography
Think future, build future. The strategies of companies, institutions, and corporations are based on approaches that project today onto tomorrow. Among these, one approach remains underutilized: the analysis of change through the lens of demography. Although demographic change may seem slow and almost imperceptible, this very phenomenon is one of the most powerful forces shaping our economic, social, and political future – a true megatrend. To envision the future and build a sustainable tomorrow, it is essential to adopt a demographic perspective. By starting with demography and then exploring ...
Transition finance, sustainability and AI
In recent years, major European banks have developed a list of sectors populated by companies with high CO2 emissions. The concept of "transition finance" is primarily about working with these companies to identify and achieve shared decarbonization goals, typically by 2030. However, as we know, in economics "everything is interconnected," so the list may not be exhaustive or entirely stable, requiring updates based on new information. Which sectors are most scrutinized, and which should be closely monitored? What should companies do to align more closely with stakeholders' expectations ...
European Capital Markets: The Lost Decade and Draghi’s Wake-Up Call
European stock markets are thriving, but this is not necessarily a sign of a broader positive trend. In fact, if politicians and bureaucrats fail to act, the Union could lose the historic opportunity to create the European capital market it so desperately needs, especially in light of the challenges posed by the "Three Ds"—deglobalization, demographics with declining birth rates, and decarbonization. Having discussed this since 2015, we have already lost a decade. Stock exchanges are having a momentous year, with European ones in the front ranks: Paris, Frankfurt, Milan, Amsterdam, with the ...
Bringing Innovation to EU Public Administrations
The communication “Enhancing the European Administrative Space,” also known as “ComPAct,”[1] was adopted by the European Commission on October 25, 2023. It is innovative in that, for the first time, the Commission proposes a comprehensive set of actions in support of administrative modernization and cooperation in and between Member States at all levels (national, regional and local). The aim is to learn, improve, and make effective use of European funds, such as those provided by the Cohesion Policy and the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF). The ComPAct crowns the natural evolution ...
Marine and Submarine Routes: the Red Sea and the Future of Global Trade
We tend to think of the global market as a seamless large bazaar where goods from all over the world flow with ease. In reality, it consists of countless bazaars of all sizes, connected by a circular flow of goods. The most important connections are maritime, and they are quite few. For this reason, the attacks on ships off the coast of Yemen raise concerns that may seem exaggerated, considering that very few of these have had significant effects. To put things in perspective: since the beginning of the conflict between Israel and Hamas last October, the Houthis, a group of Yemeni rebels backed ...
AI and the Future of Work in Finance
In the 1991 movie Judgment Day, Terminator says, “My CPU is a neural-net processor; a learning computer. The more contact I have with humans, the more I learn.” The effects of the nuclear war started by machines to exterminate humanity in the film have left a profound impact on how many people think about the use of artificial intelligence. For decades, concerns about the growing power of machines were limited to a few, but the exponential increase in the learning capabilities of new systems, particularly those that are part of generative AI, has begun to stir anxiety among academics and managers. ...
Internet of Beings. AI and Hyper Data Revolutionize Healthcare
The use of telemedicine dates back to at least as early as the inception of the Internet (Hjelm, 2017). In the same year that Vincent Cerf and Robert Kahn proposed using the Internet Protocol for internal Pentagon communication, astronauts donned spacesuits equipped to continuously monitor their vital signs, sending data back to Houston and streaming it live to a global audience during the Moon landing. But despite decades of optimistic predictions about how digital tools could revolutionize healthcare and disease prevention, these expectations have largely gone unmet. Paradoxically, the healthcare ...
A Forward-Looking Vision. Rethinking HR Strategies and Public Employee Roles
People are an organization's most adaptable asset, embodying a diverse set of skills, roles, expectations, and motivations that evolve over time. The organization can choose to be a passive bystander to this change, or it can play an active role by facilitating and managing change: in the former case, organizations that are slow to respond to contextual demands risk being unprepared for crises and missing many opportunities. Conversely, administrations that invest time and resources in developing a forward-looking vision, as in the second case, are ideally positioned to drive essential change. The ...
To Be or Not to Be: Sustainability Between Strategy, ESG, and Reporting
Driven by a series of institutional and political pressures—from Climate Conferences to the Green Deal, from Non-Financial Reporting and Sustainable Finance Directives to those on transparency and greenwashing—the debate on corporate sustainability has often become muddled and highly ideological in recent years. With over three decades of experience in sustainability management, and having observed and studied the actions of many managers and organizations, we aim to clarify what corporate sustainability truly is and what it is not. The roots of corporate sustainability lie in corporate responsibility ...
The Feminist Revolution for a New Era of Management
A silent but powerful revolution is redefining the traditional paradigms of corporate governance and management. A transformation that challenges our ideas of power, merit, personal and business success, while promoting – at the same time – authentic relationships with consumers. This movement has its roots in the fight against gender discrimination, which began in the last century. Gender discrimination in business has historically limited women's employment opportunities, hindered their careers, created wage disparities, and prevented access to leadership positions, with the phenomenon known ...