Innholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2023 i The European Business Review

iPhones, laptops, the internet, Siri, Alexa. Who does not know all the devices, applications, and methods to get things faster, remember our choices, play our favourite music, and make our lives easier? What everyone seems to forget is that none of them is actually a human who could remember our favourite music or our favourite store. While we might have a conversation with Siri, we forget that Siri responds with predetermined responses that are reactions to specific words. We also do not consider the safety of our conversation. Alexa mistakenly dials contacts of phone books who can then record private conversations (Fowler, 2019), or assists in convicting murderers (Burke, 2019). We need to examine whether AI can expedite repetitive tasks only, or whether the fear of emotional AI should alarm…

KEY TAKEAWAYS ☑ As of today, there are no large-scale quantum computers available that could break cryptographic algorithms, but we know they are coming. Due to the time it takes to implement and promulgate a defense, businesses should act now to counter this threat. ☑ European businesses should start by putting in place a post-quantum security strategy, a migration roadmap, and a course to crypto agility – the ability to easily move from one algorithm to another. The quantum threat makes crypto agility a recommended choice for post-quantum cryptography transition. And, given that we expect these algorithms to continue to evolve, being crypto agile even after that is also important. ☑ European businesses waiting too long to complete their migration could pay a high cost or even disappear if they…

Succeeding in today´s world requires a combination of functional, self-management, special knowledge, and technology skills. How relevant is emotional intelligence to this mix? We are living in very challenging and uncertain times, where people have to be equipped with a strong arsenal of diversified solid psychological tools and skills to be able to navigate through the current unexpected changes of the modern world, especially during the pandemic and all of its consequences in our world. While speaking about skills, nowadays we not only speak about the vitality of hard skills, such as digital literacy, knowledge in your domain, and tool skills learnt through vocational training designed for tackling job-specific duties but also some “soft” skills like communication and interpersonal skills, emotion management and emotional intelligence skills, which have the utmost…

A C-suite fully engaged in green initiatives sends a strong message to stakeholders that a company is taking climate action seriously. Gone are the days of Chief Sustainability Officers (CSO) as the sole guardians of a company's climate strategy. As COP28 approaches, businesses that maintain this outdated mindset will struggle to implement an actionable and robust climate strategy. Instead, a company's full leadership team must take the initiative and claim individual ownership of driving climate action within their specific business functions. Mobilising the collective intelligence and power of the entire C-Suite gives companies a much better chance of overcoming the enormous challenge of achieving net zero targets. A C-suite fully engaged in green initiatives sends a strong message to stakeholders that a company is taking climate action seriously, helping to…

GOVERNANCE Boards are highly complex constructs and full of ambiguous power relationships. An appointment to an executive or governing board is often perceived as the culmination of a distinguished executive career. It is the ultimate challenge to be effective in these complex environments – be it as a Chair who orchestrates the board, the CEO who has to ensure that the numbers are in line with expectations, or the member of a board or NED aiming to cement their position in the business community. Increasing risks and scrutiny from investors and the media put boards to the test. They are challenged to continuously learn, evolve, and increase their effectiveness. Fully facilitated external and internal reviews form an integral part of annual board calendars and are there to help members gain…

GENERATIVE AI Technology automation is not a zero-sum game. Technology replaces tasks to improve productivity and ultimately generate a bigger pie to enjoy. For Slidor, a French communication company created a few years ago, 50% of its corporate graphic marketing presentation is already done by MidJourney.1 This intensive use of generative AI is also visible in the same proportion for the codes written by Copilot within GitHub.2 Needless to say, this extensive use of generative AI is invading the enterprise world at a rapid pace. It may also have created its “I-phone moment” in the process: while most digital technologies have focused on “routine” technologies, new generative AI systems such as MidJourney, Stable Diffusion, You, OpenAI's ChatGPT, and DALL-E are automating creative tasks such as content image generation or software…

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION In today's corporate landscape, the relationship between Information Technology (IT) and security departments often mirrors a tangled web, marked by conflicting objectives and strained interactions. Yet, as digitalisation accelerates across all sectors, amplified by the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has never been more crucial for Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs), and other digital technology leaders to align their strategies for the greater good of their organisation. As we witness an escalating digital race in every industry, the need to harmonise the divergent missions of IT and security has become paramount. So, what are the conflicting perceptions both teams have against each other? And how can business leaders optimise this divided relationship that has persisted for the last decade? THE CONFLICTING VIEWS…

Iam a Professor of Psychology with a longtime interest in psychometric testing. I have published books on the topic (the latest last year, Twenty Ways to Assess Personnel, Cambridge University Press), and developed a number of tests sold to test publishers (e.g., High Potential Trait Indicator). Over the past three years, a number of young entrepreneurs (perhaps half a dozen) have contacted me to help them develop new tests. They wanted to be part of the new, and potentially very lucrative, AI-inspired wave of talent management and person profiling. They were small business start-ups —some with good backing, others not. They had a lot in common and, as far as I can tell, they all failed financially, like so many other testing-tech start-ups. One main issue was that they competed…

This article is a follow-up on “Economic Sustainability in a Time of Impact and Regulation”. In the previous article, I argued that there were three overall principles within the economic sustainability logic: 1 The world is not rich enough to rely only on government and regulation to lead the world to net zero. 2 Heavy regulatory measures can create ineffective solutions and an artificial market environment. 3 The most efficient way to net zero is Identifying and scaling the technologies and companies that will drive the green transformation, not because it is green or subsidised, but because it is better, cheaper, simpler to adopt and more available (BCSA). Having created the foundation for the battleground and presented the mission towards net zero in my previous article, I will now redirect…

GENERATIVE AI Since its official launch at the end of 2022, ChatGPT has demonstrated how artificial intelligence (AI) systems have drastically improved. There is much excitement about the technology — which we definitely share-- but it remains important to get clear on what it does/ does not. Here is a list of important considerations an executive should think about before implementing such a tool. 1. HOW STRONG IS THE PERFORMANCE CURVE? While the combination of big data with AI led to major advancements in deep machine learning, it took only a matter of one decade for AI to perform at about human capabilities for image, writing and speech recognition. What ChatGPT further demonstrates is that the next step, reading and language understanding, could match human capabilities only in a matter…

GLOBAL BUSINESS The European economy declined by 6.1 per cent in 20201 and, while recovery is on the way, many economists and institutions do not expect a full recovery before the end of 2023, and that is without taking into consideration the possibility of the appearance of virus variants.2,3,4,5,6,7,8 Machiavelli, however, recommended never to waste the opportunities created by a good crisisI. But where can we find opportunities amid the present (COVID) and any future crisis? The answer requires us to address three questions. 1 First: since the only new is the past that one ignores (H. Truman), were there resilient businesses during the last major (subprime) crisis?9,10,11 2 Second: if so, can one find general explanations for those booming activities unrelated and thus independent of the specific cause of…

In 2022, global footwear market revenue reached $381 billion, with estimates that it will eclipse $450 billion by 2027.1 But of the 23 billion pairs of shoes manufactured every year, 90 per cent are believed to end up in landfill.2 And once in a landfill, it takes between 30 and 40 years for just one pair to decompose, and a common sneaker midsole made from ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) can last up to 1,000 years.3 Wedged between rapid industry growth and mounting concern over the industry's environmental impact, bids for sustainability riff on the basics: material innovation, clean-tech-enabled manufacturing, transparent supply chains, and circular design models. Looking to crack the code of sustainable footwear, Swiss running brand On4 is the latest athletic apparel company to enter the race – with…

Society's growing concern over climate change has led to a surge in corporate climate pledges. Thousands of companies have joined the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change's Race to Zero campaign, committing to take rigorous actions to limit their environmental impact. IKEA has pledged to be climate-positive by 2030, the BMW Group to be carbon-neutral by 2050, and Unilever to reach net zero by 2030. The logic behind these pledges is straightforward: 1 Long-term pledges lead to concrete investment in more sustainable practices. 2 Investors and consumers reward companies that contribute to the green transition and penalise those that don't. Over time, pledges should create a virtuous cycle, firms with strong sustainability performance dominating the market. Yet recent analysis of 25 major companies' pledges1 shows that they are falling…