London and New York remain important exchanges in global financial markets, however many exchanges located in the Asia Pacific region are gaining or have gained global recognition as major financial centres. Our intention with this scholarship is to support future financial leaders who will build a career in the Asia Pacific region, during and after…
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By Enrique Dans, Professor at IE Business School, published on IE Focus
Social networks have the capacity to mobilize millions of people in defense of a cause, regardless of their location. The far-reaching impact of this is now starting to show.The expansion of social networks has had one extremely interesting effect: the proliferation of causes or claims capable of garnering the support of a large number of people, sometimes very quickly. When this occurs, the person promoting the cause in question cites the number of people involved as evidence of support, whereas sceptics and detractors try to downplay it by talking about of the scant value of support provided by merely using an index finger to click on a mouse.
Who should we believe? Can we consider this type of group as tangible evidence of support, the virtual equivalent of a street demonstration with banners and slogans, or does the practically zero effort required to support the cause mean it is worth very little? The social importance of this issue is growing as the number of social network users increases: Spain has the highest number of social networks users in the world (according to the latest figures, we are talking about around ten million active users on Facebook and around eight million on Tuenti). As a result, many are starting to see social networks as a kind of “trend laboratory” or a gauge for measuring the “social mood”, a kind of permanent, real-time survey on the widest possible variety of subjects.
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This February, IE Business School brought together some of Spain and Israel’s most prominent entrepreneurs and investors for a conference about an essential element of the entrepreneurial endeavor: Failure.“The Advantages of Failure,” the first conference of its kind hosted by a business school, asked participants to speak about their greatest failures as entrepreneurs, how they learned from and eventually overcame them. Present in all entrepreneurial markets, the fear of failure is one of the biggest obstacles to fomenting a successful European entrepreneurial ecosystem. In Spain, for example, more than 50% of those interviewed by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), the largest single study of entrepreneurial activity in the world, note that the fear of failure is a key impediment to becoming an entrepreneur.
The start of the conference delved into the lessons learned from experience:
•Jose María Castillejo, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Zinkia Entertainment SA, whose principal product is the animated figure Pocoyo, recounted his experience with a Ukrainian train heist. The son of a local Ukranian politician “hid” a train full of sunflower seeds in order to squeeze Castillejo out of a profitable business exporting sunflower seed oil.
•Jesús Encinar, founder and CEO of Spain’s top real estate website Idealista.com explained how the failures of his parents’ first businesses – and the subsequent need to relocate from his childhood home – made him ever vigilant of bank debt and possible business failure. In 2008, Encinar was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.
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By David Bach, Professor at IE Business School, published on IE Focus
Germany has scored more economic goals than Spain because it applied the structural reforms needed before the crisis took hold, and because Merkel, has controlled spending from the start.Spain may have beaten Germany in both the European Football Championship and the World Cup, but where economy is concerned there is no doubt that Germany has the upper hand. Last Thursday´s news that the largest economy on the continent had grown by 3.6% in 2010 (the highest level since the unification in 1990) has surprised even the experts. The Spanish economy, however, closed 2010 with an average reduction of 0.2%. What does Angela Merkel know about economics that the Spanish president doesn’t? One analysis of the German success shows that the causes behind the differences go beyond the current Chancellor´s policies and also clearly point the path Spain should take.
Germany´s economic strength (and Spain´s weakness) is based fundamentally on four pillars:
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