Independentemente da sua atividade, as empresas, hoje, competem na cena internacional. Não conheço nenhuma atividade que não tenha concorrência de outros países, até mesmo um bem não transacionável como a energia já tem concorrência estrangeira.

Com a internet das coisas, este cenário é ainda mais evidente, por essa razão, desenvolver competências 4.0 é inevitável. A realidade da maioria das empresas Portuguesas está ainda muito aquém do que é, minimamente, necessário para percorrer esta viagem. A boa notícia é que, feita a tomada de consciência, os Portugueses costumam ter uma habilidade rara para percorrer mais rapidamente novos caminhos. A vontade, a crença e a capacidade inventiva, “o improviso” que lhes é característico, são os drivers que os impulsionam para diante quando já ninguém mais parece acreditar que são capazes de lá chegar.

As principais competências centrais para iniciar a aventura 4.0 são:

Gestão (financeira, pessoas, produção, vendas, fiscal, administrativa, patrimonial…):

Na atividade empresarial, o aventureirismo já não produz valor e, se tal acontece esporadicamente, não tem qualquer tipo de sustentabilidade. O mercado, atualmente, oferece sistemas de gestão integrada absolutamente eficazes e baratos. Não se justifica que a empresa, independentemente do seu tamanho, não possua um em funcionamento.

Em resumo, um profissional competente em finanças, contabilidade, economia ou gestão e um ERP eficaz, são condição necessária para arrancar para o 4.0.

Qualidade, certificação, melhoria contínua:

A adoção de um Sistema de Gestão da Qualidade e a correspondente certificação, deve ser uma decisão estratégica e voluntária da organização. A penetração em novos mercados, ou manutenção dos existentes, o aumento da confiança, interna e externa, os adequados métodos de trabalho a reorganização da empresa, a contínua motivação dos colaboradores, o prestígio da empresa, o maior e mais adequado controlo dos custos de não qualidade, o aumento da satisfação dos clientes, o reconhecimento internacional e a possibilidade de ser incluído na lista de empresas líderes do mercado mundial, dependem da adoção de um sistema de gestão de qualidade. Nenhuma empresa pode aspirar a cumprir com o objetivo “zero defeitos” da indústria 4.0 se não tiver implementado um sistema de gestão de qualidade.

Formação contínua:

É impossível governar uma empresa que não acompanha o desenvolvimento do mercado num contexto em que a velocidade a que a informação circula permite o desenvolvimento muito acelerado de novos conhecimentos em qualquer empresa que tenha vontade e empenho em competir.

Independentemente do seu tamanho, uma empresa capaz de recolher e selecionar de forma adequada a informação que se encontra abundantemente disponível na internet, pode, em pouco tempo, e com poucos recursos, competir com pares de muito maior dimensão e com custos de estrutura muito mais pesados podendo habilitar-se a vencer as sucessivas batalhas de mercado que se lhe colocam pela frente, mesmo sem a notoriedade que a dimensão e os anos de relação com clientes parece assegurar às maiores e mais antigas estruturas.

Nunca, como hoje, sucumbiram tantas empresas. Segundo a S&P 500 a vida média das empresas passou de 64 anos nos anos 20 para 15 anos em 2014.

Implementar de imediato um sistema de formação contínua, capaz e bem articulado, é essencial para preparar a organização para as necessidades de conhecimento diversificado e continuado que a indústria 4.0 exige. Um sistema assim, é de tal forma dinâmico que encerra, em si mesmo, uma competência core da organização. Esta competência que consiste em ser capaz de questionar, constantemente, a forma como se faz e, consequentemente, poder encontrar caminhos para fazer melhor recorrendo a novos conhecimentos, que a levam a novas metodologias e processos de execução, permite à organização tornar-se hábil a melhorar continuamente o seu know-how.

Quebrar paradigmas e aceitar novos exige treino e uma atitude de mudança que desafia os individuos a perderem o medo de sair da sua zona de conforto. Esta é, em si mesmo, uma atitude que pode ser ensinada e treinada.

“Penso 99 vezes e nada descubro. Deixo de pensar, mergulho no silêncio, e eis que a verdade me é revelada. Albert Einstein.”

Continua…

People management, upon which succession depends, requires foresight, maturity, knowledge and leadership skills. It requires an elevated capacity for correction during the analysis of results, as well as intent focus on people and their interpersonal dynamic. In addition, there must be decentralisation of power, accountability and decision making involving and taking into consideration the opinions of each team member.

This requires counselling skills, much learning, modesty and faith, as well as negotiation skills and moderation. It cumulatively requires an honest behaviour, transparent and coherent, so that people cannot raise questions relative to the strength of the leadership’s direction whilst following the charted course. Such doubts generate insecurity and demoralisation.
 
Therefore, it is clear that families, especially those with companies and who intend to maintain them, need to diligently, even to the point of exhaustion if necessary, work the critical factors for success involved in the management of the previously mentioned people and teams, starting with those who are a part of the family.
 
Not only is it sad, it is highly devastating relative to values, to see siblings and cousins or joint heirs of companies by shares destroy their relationship due to a simple lack of guidance in the family conflict.

Therefore, it is important to discuss this subject arduously, publicly debating it, spreading the information and making it an integral part of the national agenda.

It is a difficult subject with great emotional complexity, which requires highly experienced moderators in family conflict. It is worth giving it the importance it deserves, namely in the support framework of the 2020 agenda.

Strong and well structured families have a greater probability of finding strong and well structured successors from among their heirs. Successors, who are technically prepared to be the “right person in the right place”, to take responsibility for transforming the corporate legacy into something consolidated and resilient.

A good succession is best obtained if the company handles the process with a high degree of professionalism, which today must be based on processes which originate from a culture of growth, based on the continued acquisition of knowledge.

Being that the heirs to the companies are normally not professionals, nor do they intend to be so, it frequently occurs that successors and those who came before impede knowledge from entering the organisation, and therefore, pose a threat. That is also one of the reasons for the elevated rate of unemployment of individuals with degrees.

People tend to reject that which they do not know because it is impossible for them to control the unknown. Sadly, the result is not the most desired one: many Portuguese companies live their day-to-day based on archaic and outdated management processes, without strategy, framework, objectives and dreams, without even the capacity to continue that which they had dreamt and constructed.

To be continued…

Returning to this issue, which was introduced in December, and after writing about the Millennium generation, with whom we walk together in organisations today, I think it is important to talk about the theme of succession – the other very important and significant part of the journey. After all, if the successors and those who came before do not know how to walk together, leadership may be jeopardised. Without leadership, there is no path, and without a path, there is no course and without a set course, it is impossible to implement the necessary strategies which enable the company to move forward in security and in the direction of its final objective, the leader’s or leaders’* vision being the finishing line.

According to information recently published by a renowned Portuguese university, in Portugal, family businesses represent approximately 80% of enterprises and contribute to 60% of employability. Half of family businesses do not continue into the second generation and only 20% continue to the third.

Succession in companies, regardless of their size or corporate purpose is, I believe, one of the most important subjects for the sustainability of SMEs and, therefore, for the country’s economy.

Succession is a delicate matter because it involves people (emotion), the management and guidance of companies (elevated rationality) and family (emotions running high, property rights and sense of possession). In my opinion, it is worth discussing the subject at length and in a direct and open manner, demystifying, clarifying, reflecting on and suggesting paths.

Whoever owns companies knows that economic and financial management is not only a technical process. Both for SMEs and micro enterprises, the ERPs offered by the market are priced accessibly, thereby providing, from a technical perspective,   reliability which transforms management into a simple process.

Business management, in this vast sea of knowledge (global, dynamic, surprising and unpredictable) is, fundamentally, a method of managing people and procedures. To have good procedures, even those involving systems with an elevated level of automation or robotisation, it is necessary to have good people.  “The right people in the right places!”- is something which must occur starting at the top, being that there is where the example should be set for the rest of the company to follow.

Success in people management depends on the exponentiation of the results achieved through teamwork. It, in its turn, depends on the mechanisms of personal responsibility and well planned systems, which reward both individual performance, as well as team performance.

* This situation is possible as long as they agree with the vision.

This generation no longer sees school as only a source of knowledge, but also demand that it be a source of ethical and moral values, values which had previously been transmitted by family and religion. Currently, students spend most of their time in schools, be it their normal school, language schools or music schools. Many also practice sports activities, and because of all this combined, spend much less time with their families.

The feeling of solidarity is great, and frequently leads to symptoms of depression and phobias. These situations have been confirmed by expert consultants and psychologists. José Ernesto Bologna, a youth therapist and school advisor, sees this outbreak of modern diseases as a side effect of individualism, typical of our times.

In view of all this, it is the school’s responsibility to give new meaning to solidarity and the collective spirit, as stated by Bologna: “It is clear that society in the second half of the twentieth century shifted responsibility to schools”. In the past, family taught children social etiquette, the Church gave them morals, school transmitted knowledge, companies made them part of the production process and the State organised that process. Now, almost all of these functions have been delegated to schools and the roles in families have changed dramatically.

To summarise, this generation, who was born between the early 80’s and the year 2000, is today between 15 and 35 years old. Many are the children of divorced parents. They had computers before they ever tried smoking for the first time and a mobile phone before their first sexual encounter. They are narcissistic, multifaceted, innovative, egocentric and anxious, in a state of permanent crisis.

This generation is individualist, social and moulded by technology. They seem to be less inclined to purchase homes and cars. They have different consumption patterns, which are forcing economic policies to adapt.

They rent more and buy less fixed assets. This generation has altered the paradigm, which changed from possession to access. This occurred, fundamentally because of necessity, being that the context’s uncertainty and precariousness enables fewer commitments based on a stable and comfortable life. For that reason, they are influencing economic agents, who face new and difficult challenges.

Walking together is normally easier for this generation than the previous one, being that, even though they are more individualistic, they are usually more willing to work as a team.

They feel the need to be part of a team because, many times, they come from small families with few or no siblings.

The Millennium generation has grown up with technology. It is common for their rooms to be filled with technological equipment. They grew up in schools and nurseries surrounded by security and fences. They are and/or were children who travelled with mobiles and have internet access. The youth of the MG are individuals who believe in their working potential, significantly dedicating themselves to advancing in their careers and who are always ready to increasingly invest in themselves. They are youth who are highly demanding of themselves, with regard to their appearance, knowledge and values.

Their greatest challenge is integration in the labour market. That greatly scares them, given the high rate of unemployment and the current economic crisis. This lack of professional prospects creates insecurity and anxiety.

These young adults fear not finding a place in the labour market, not being able to maintain that place and therefore, not being able to maintain the lifestyle their parents have afforded them.

The MG is a generation who takes a while to leave their parents’ home, who greatly invests in their career and who has a dream of building a family, but always as a future perspective, without having a very concrete project, similar to what happens with their careers.

On a personal level, they fear the future, being that for them, the current reality is chaotic and violent.

On one hand, they frequently seem rigid with respect to behavioural patterns. Yet, at the other extreme, they are individuals with absolutely no limits, without direction and ethical values.

The MG is a generation who was brought up by parents who lived under great repression from a military dictatorship. These parents – Generation X – were raised by parents that exercised paternal authority with well-established and rigid rules, which were obeyed with the utmost rigour.

Generation X, in their youth, wanted to leave their parents’ home and gain their independence. Contrarily, the youth from the Millennium Generation prefer to enjoy the benefits provided by living in their parents’ home.

This generation is possessive of their rights, more than of their obligations and responsibilities.

At 10 years old, they already make jokes with sexual connotations. Their first sexual encounter occurs at around the age of 16 and one in every ten teenagers does not practise safe sex.

In this generation, private life has no borders because of the prevalence of social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

They form relationships with the world and maintain friendships for years and know all about each other’s lives. They talk to the entire world at the same time Information and communication is so rapid, efficient, brief and accessible to all. Interpersonal contact is easy, but almost always superficial.

Virtual takes on vast dimensions for people of this generation, losing what can be touched and felt, the lasting, personal dimension. The temporal dimension, for the most part, is the here and the now, and immediacy prevails, in detriment to the very distant future.

To be concluded in the next article.