Managerial Insights
Covid-19 and the Prison of Categories
A broad debate is developing in Italian media on the so-called "phase 2" of the coronavirus emergency. This period will involve the gradual opening of non-essential activities (remember that essential ones are already open) and the reduction of the restrictions on mobility for citizens. In this debate, various categories are used to distinguish between businesses and workers. For businesses, the first major distinction is that between those that operate in essential sectors and non-essential sectors. This division into categories can be problematic, because while on the one hand it is possible ...
The Cardinal Points of Phase 2
In recent weeks, the debate has focused exclusively on the need for reopening the economy and the beginning of what is called "phase 2." Many businesses and commercial activities are demanding this, along with their institutional representatives as well. In various cases this is an unjustified request, because for many sectors there is a crisis of demand that will last for months, until people feel safe. For example, if the entire tourism sector were to open up again in two weeks, there would not be sufficient customers to sustain it. Yet there are other sectors (especially intermediate and capital ...
The Cardinal Points of Phase 2
In recent weeks, the debate has focused exclusively on the need for reopening the economy and the beginning of what is called "phase 2." Many businesses and commercial activities are demanding this, along with their institutional representatives as well. In various cases this is an unjustified request, because for many sectors there is a crisis of demand that will last for months, until people feel safe. For example, if the entire tourism sector were to open up again in two weeks, there would not be sufficient customers to sustain it. Yet there are other sectors (especially intermediate and capital ...
In Search of Lost Profitability
The lead articles in the Financial Times from last February 25 and 26[1] show that European banks are having increasing difficulty finding top managers, since such figures are strongly attracted by the lavish salaries received by their counterparts in the United States. Such managers have become rare on the market in Europe, and almost non-existent within individual banks, that are said not to have adequately prepared for the substitution of those human resources. It is difficult to say if the problem exists for Italian banks as well, but the fact that when a choice must be made they always end ...
Great Evils and Great Errors
To improve, it is necessary to recognize one's mistakes. This is a basic, simple principle that we all learn when we are children, for example while at school: when you make a spelling mistake in a dictation, the teacher highlights it in red. Here you made a mistake, don't do it again. And it doesn't matter if out of a hundred words, seventy were right. You must concentrate on the thirty that you got wrong. We have all been there, yet it seems that many forget this simple principle. The events of recent weeks have tragically highlighted the fact that many errors have been made. We see this in ...
Great Evils and Great Errors
To improve, it is necessary to recognize one's mistakes. This is a basic, simple principle that we all learn when we are children, for example while at school: when you make a spelling mistake in a dictation, the teacher highlights it in red. Here you made a mistake, don't do it again. And it doesn't matter if out of a hundred words, seventy were right. You must concentrate on the thirty that you got wrong. We have all been there, yet it seems that many forget this simple principle. The events of recent weeks have tragically highlighted the fact that many errors have been made. We see this in ...
Competition and Concentration between Banks, Neobanks, and Payment Institutions
Competition and concentration are phenomena that simultaneously regard traditional banks, “neobanks,” and payment institutions. The first are proper financial intermediaries; the third are service companies that at least for now, do not intermediate anything; while the second are relatively hybrid entities, although it is difficult to generalize because they are very varied. The evolution of the context in which these three categories of operators act starts from the idea of being able to produce new financial services of various types, especially payment services, in a simple, low-cost, efficient, ...
Lavazza’s Response to the Great Challenge
The pandemic upon us has caused an emergency that will have a very significant impact on the international economy. Our country and its business and productive fabric will have to go through a test of resistance, just a short time after the one already passed after the financial crisis of 2008. This event - whose unforeseeability and rapid spread found us unprepared nationally and globally - forces us to rethink and reconfigure our way of approaching business, our relations with society, and our way of belonging to a community. Lavazza decided to act immediately, in the initial days of the crisis, ...
Lavazza’s Response to the Great Challenge
The pandemic upon us has caused an emergency that will have a very significant impact on the international economy. Our country and its business and productive fabric will have to go through a test of resistance, just a short time after the one already passed after the financial crisis of 2008. This event - whose unforeseeability and rapid spread found us unprepared nationally and globally - forces us to rethink and reconfigure our way of approaching business, our relations with society, and our way of belonging to a community. Lavazza decided to act immediately, in the initial days of the crisis, ...
The Rise of the Third King
In the weeks of the coronavirus, everything that has happened - or not happened - in American economic and monetary policy has immediately reverberated around the world, including through the channel represented by the dollar. It is no coincidence that the first coordinated action between the central banks of the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Switzerland, and Canada was a dual intervention - the first on the 15th and the second on the 20th of March - aimed at strengthening dollar repo channels between the Fed and other central banks, both in terms of volumes, that ...