Apr 30, 2020
The BBC World Business Report released a broadcast that described a wide array of perspectives on the financial and social consequences of COVID-19. After interviewing Neil Bradley, we understand that about one in ten businesses are less than a month away from shutting down completely, and despite federal and state spending, some businesses will not be able to come back from their current deficit. Following Bradley’s statement, Dr. Ayman El Tarabishy of the International Council for Small Business describes our collective movement towards a new normality. He comments on our current situation by enlightening the audience to the hurt of small businesses. Enterprises, housing only four to five employees, are those that often survive financially on a month-to-month basis. Additionally, El Tarabishy comments on how even large businesses who have invested in the upcoming spring season will feel this crisis. Throughout this moment, the unknown of time is the most important variable. Dr. El Tarabishy indicates that companies would have an easier time adjusting to this moment of loss, if they were able to define an end date and work backwards in adjusting their income structure. However, definitive time is not a luxury for which our current crisis allows. As about two trillion dollars are coming from the government, most businesses, who without aid would be severely suffering, are feeling grateful to stay open and be able to pay their employees properly. However, what will happen when it is time to pay the April paychecks? This conversation must also include a monetary percentage, therefore if businesses are able to pay their employees with the help of the government this month, they will have to replay this scene again next month. Luckily, according to Dr. El Tarabishy, small businesses are known to try to first take care of their employees.
The presenter then asks Dr. El Tarabishy if this shut down is too large a price to pay for the pandemic, to which El Tarabishy immediately responds “no.” He states that small businesses are based in humane entrepreneurship, and while there are those who will see this virus in a negative light, there are others that will note how their enterprise’s sacrifice was made for humanity. It is this change in the narrative that will shift the way that the next generations view this moment in history. Small businesses are resilient, and that resilience shines brightest in moments of crisis, like that of today. That spirit will hopefully work concurrently with a long term plan set forth by the government. As it seems impossible to predict the future, especially as we find ourselves in such a volatile state, only the evolution of time will determine if large spending during this period will be worth it. Dr. El Tarabishy notes that if people are willing to sacrifice in the short term for their long term survival, they often need to know how long that short term period will last. This uncertainty leaves us individuals with a choice. One in which we can choose to wait for the worst or another in which we can show our true resilient humanity.
Reference broadcast: 25% of US small businesses could close
Apr 30, 2020
With one in two world inhabitants “confinés,” as Dean Guillaume Bigot puts it, we have an incredible opportunity to reflect on where we are. Taking over at the IPAG Business School Paris-Nice groups in July 2008, I think of Bigot as a “rebel dean.” Formed as a journalist, Bigot, and by association IPAG, uses the incredible tactic of remaining small in size. Not to promote exclusivity, but rather to focus on the quality of the programs and work that they are already conducting. Founded by Jacques Rueff, executive advisor to President Charles de Gaulle, the deeply rooted origins permit the school to branch into other world spaces with the understanding that they are french.
In looking at the evolution of Paris, Bigot returned to the intense changes in globalization and the promotion of the “anglo-saxon business model,” following the collapse of the USSR during the Regan era. As he points to the interesting yet positive nature of the world’s usage of business tools, formalized business processes, and the adaptation of the English language in business ventures, he recognizes the convenience for the anglo-saxons. Being made in the image of their world view, anglo-saxons are able to “maximize their assets and qualities” in this field built by and for them. However, Bigot importantly points out that despite the efforts made by the international community, specifically business schools in France, to become more “anglo-saxon,” these people will never do it well enough because they, themselves, will never be anglo-saxon. Warning us to pay attention as to how we can adapt ourselves to these standards, the rebel dean has decided to encourage his students to do things differently.
Looking to teach their students to be focused in their learning rather than to promote multiculturalism in their education, IPAG seeks to challenge their students to get to know the market they are working in. This being a way for students to learn to master their studies, and then to master their market research in the future. If one is looking to do business in Russia, IPAG advises that student to learn Russian, meaning becoming proficient in the language as well as the geography, the demography, the opportunities and, most importantly, the limitations to communities in that area.
Having exemplified the power of this focus, soon after beginning as Dean of IPAG Paris-Nice, Bigot capitalized on the geographic location by drawing an international population to the school, specifically doing so in the form of conferences, which are held three times a year and seek to examine the topics of finance, economy of energy and ecology, and scientific business studies. Despite the school’s small size, these conferences helped IPAG gain world recognition. By targeting the quality of their program, IPAG grew locationally, rather than in student size. Strategically opening a campus in Kunming, IPAG has truly demonstrated the power in finding and following a new path.
Looking at the ‘Day After’ in France, we are warned that “if we do not pay attention, not only could the day after look just like the day before, but it could be even worse.” Many nations, including France and the United States, have seen how dependent their supply chain rests on China as “l’usine du monde,” the world’s factory. We can also see other troubling trends; for example, many middle class wages are not increasing in a direct relationship with the wealth being created globally. Additionally, we must be wary of the large, global enterprises that are much more capable of surviving the doomsday, than typical MSMEs. Bigot alerts us to pay close attention because “if we do not do something to support and help small businesses, the businesses that are capable of reinventing the economy and the day after will, and that day after will be even worse.”
We are guided to prepare for the unexpected. As in the first hour of a battle, the entire plan has already fallen apart, we must stop thinking that the future will look like the past or, frankly, that it will resemble anything we know. This proves difficult for humanity as everything we have created to predict future trends is created from information about the past. Bigot describes how fiance is nothing more than a calculus of the past. Therefore, in this moment we must focus on long lasting skills that will remain relevant throughout the uncertainty of the future. For this reason specifically, Bigot believes that Hubs, which will work to give students tools to modify their behavior. In order to offer students the life experiences in which they might learn about themselves, their own limits, and how they interact with others, Bigot has created programs in which his students are tested. In an extreme example, IPAG sends their students to the Alps for seven days. This is not an experience meant for interviews, but rather so that the students understand that if they want to survive, they need to join together, a humbling reminder of the importance of the collective.
Bigot understands and, therefore, hopes to portray the importance of moving from a consumer to a producer mentality. Consumers work off of their instincts, however producers are trained to think and make informed decisions. Bigot recalls how Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius, the last emperor of the Pax Romana, made only one to two decisions everyday. This art of thoroughly thinking through a decision, an argument, or a concept seems to be completely lost in this day and age.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic may have given us the perfect opportunity to recover this lost art. We, as individuals, can also pay attention to controlling our own Day Afters. Through this experience of confinement, we have significantly changed the way in which we related to both time and space. Before the coronavirus, we were “oppressed by the agenda,” always rushed with no time to spare. During this moment of confinement, maybe we have too much time, however it is this moment that will teach us to classify, organize, and create time to think. Then later, we might seek to find a balance between the extremes of time seen in pre- and current confinement. In regards to space, before confinement, the world was our “playground.” Now, it may feel extremely frustrating to be stuck, making this the moment to recognize that although today we might not have enough space, our world playground from before may have been too much space. This global hault has led to a reliance on local supply chains. Hopefully this glocal (global and local) mindset can remain firmly ingrained in our understanding of our importance in the recovery and stability of our local and global environments. In closing, Bigot leaves us with these final words:
“You will certainly not be able to be successful if you think that success is individual. As
individuals can succeed if you understand that success is brought by others, that means that their success will also be brought by you. As an individual you have to pursue your own interest, but take into account the other, without the other you are and have nothing.”
Guillaume Bigot, thank you for your critical thinking and provocative questions, may we leave this discussion imprinted with your creative and founding manner of reasoning.
Apr 30, 2020
As the global community looks to South Korea to guide their own nations, we wonder what really sets the Korean experience apart from the rest of the world. Korea’s involvement and participation in finding their nation’s ‘new normal’ is derived from a balance between the scientific and humane efforts needed to survive and ultimately thrive during this unparalleled time.
South Korea has found such success in escaping their ‘corona blues’ thanks to a widespread transition from working, learning, and governing offline to online. Korea, itself, might often be thought of as a technological haven; however, much of their documentation and social interactions happen in a more traditional sense, offline. Business contracts are signed face-to-face, students receive lectures in lecture halls next to their peers and they listen to their professor. For quite a while, there has been an extreme juxtaposition between the traditional and new-age Korea, which had, in fact, caused a great rift in the society itself. In finding a new normal, S. Korea will be able to both increase their people’s quality of life, in addition to, their role in guiding the rest of the world in understanding how to manage a balance between off- and on-line life.
In seeking an understanding for how and why S. Korea has managed to find their new normal so efficiently and implement it so effectively, we can imagine a couple possible explanations. Beginning his presentation, he presented us with three challenges, followed by an opportunity. Within contaminated nations, there is infection control, mental depression and economic depression. Infection control presents itself mostly in the physical infection, physical distancing, washing of hands, wearing masks, which conjure feelings of fear. Next, mental depression which has presented itself as loneliness, fear, worry, and stress. Lastly, economic depression is seen as work closures, school closures, plunges in stock prices, and ultimately unemployment. Despite the negativity that these challenges hold, however, we are also presented with an opportunity. Examples of online transitions can be found in working from home, E-health, online shopping, online courses, and ordering groceries online. The fact that everything is changing and moving to online platforms has created the new normal in Korea.
In describing this new normal as a normalcy that has nothing to do with the old normal, South Korea places itself apart from other countries. Hope, founded in the humane approach of entrepreneurship, has been at the centerfold of their innovation. A type of hope that works to evolve with the world, instead of working to maintain society until the effects of COVID-19 have passed. Therefore, it is this balance between medicine and hope that guides S. Korea’s actions. Corona is “a wake up call for humanity.” The scientific message of social distancing and staying home is insufficient for a community. The loneliness of work and school closures and the isolation of social distancing can lead to mental depression, meaning that the scientific approach to navigating the coronavirus is not enough for humans. We need connection, and it is this fundamental empathetic need that has ultimately driven the creation of the new online normal.
Humane affection towards others, seen today as staying home, campaigns to provide food for elderly, and supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, is an innate part of the human experience and has guided the formation of Korea’s new normal. Technology has to be used to support the humanity of others, so that we can stay home and social distance, while staying connected. Coronavirus is our new reality, and S. Korea has done what many countries have been unable to do: accept this new reality. By admitting surrender through acceptance, we can then understand what our community needs to continue and progress. Currently, we know that we need to keep distance from one another. Science tells us this. We, also, know that human survival comes from a place of empathy, and that it was and is only through collaboration and cooperation that human societies have and continue to survive during and after moments of crisis. In light of COVID-19, we must understand that by speaking of the current physical health crisis, we mean those people who are contaminated and dying around the world. However for the living, we are having a momentary mental health crisis. After being pushed into isolation, we are experiencing extreme loneliness and disconnect, which proves to us that the empathetic connection felt when conversing with another is essential to the human condition.
Then, once a nation has fully accepted their new realities can they move to their new normal. South Korea has been the global example of early and widespread testing with their groundbreaking “drive -through’ inspection system. Other nations have been unable to repeat this example because they have refused to admit that the coronavirus is their nation’s new reality. We can not just buckle down and hold out until the end of contamination and confinement because we will never reach the desired outcome if we are unable to reach this place of acceptance, which can be demonstrated by the juxtaposition of S. Korea with the United States and France. In both the USA and France, grocery stores are empty. Produce, toilet paper and hygienic masks are beyond limited and practically unavailable to the public. In South Korea, grocery stores are full and their inhabitants have been supplied with an application to view where masks are available in the neighborhood.
Finally, it is important to note that although now people are sick, soon they will be hungry. By this statement, we are pointing to the long-term effects of COVID-19. Currently, S. Korea has managed to continue administering over 350,000 checkups (March 24). Their low mortality rate being a result of their widespread testing, in addition to quick (6 hour) results update. However, even South Korea needs to start thinking about the economic depression that has ensued from the pandemic. An example of a campaign to stimulate the economy is through tax breaks for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). This respect, shown in the form of human entrepreneurship, results from the innovation founded in technology-promoted campaigns.
The shift to the new normal is enormous, however the normalcy that follows will be one that allows our governments, entrepreneurs, and citizens to flourish in a way that has yet to be seen before on a global scale. The fate of the world depends on the acceptance of reality and the formation of a new normal that will be founded at the intersection of science and empathy and will benefit the quality of life for everyone.
Video reference: Dr. Ki-Chan Kim on the S. Korean Experience of COVID-19
