Planning Future – Acting Present
Between 2020 and 2023, the turnover rate of CFOs in Europe reached 14% according to the latest market analysis in the Consultancy sector. Record-breaking data when compared to previous years, which highlights the persistent challenge associated with the gap between demand and supply of professionals in the Executive domain. The increasing request for highly qualified resources to fill leadership roles such as Chief Financial Officer prompts companies to consider, on one hand, internal talent within the organization by retraining them appropriately and providing access to the position for the first time; on the other hand, the need to ensure robust management in an increasingly uncertain economy further fuels the hiring of external personnel with proven expertise, in some cases acquired over decades. According to the data, this seems to be the case for Women CFOs. In 2023, 50% of Chief Financial Officers had previous experiences on the job, compared to 9% of externally hired Women CFOs who took on the role for the first time. A growing number of women were appointed CFO in 2023, accounting for 19% of the total CFOs in Europe. This is encouraging progress, but still far from equality: although 25% of CFO appointments in 2023 were women, this represents a 12% decrease from the previous year. A surprising result comes from Italy where, according to March 2023 Women in Business report, the number of women in senior leadership roles increased by +4% from 2022 to 2023, simultaneously reducing the percentage of companies without female representation in similar positions (-7%). But what can we expect in the years to come? Studies reveal that a change in corporate culture could promote a greater influx of Women CFOs into organizations. Solutions such as flexible working arrangements and digitalization, for example, have already proven effective in various Eurozone countries, also enhancing corporate prestige and inclusion. Following current trends, senior management positions held by women could reach 34% in 2025 and 36.5% in 2030, according to estimates. However, it is up to People and local / international policies incentivizing change to improve these predictions.
Read MoreAuthor: Future Manager Research Center Technology is a daily topic, from some decades now. The revolution has involved sectors that we thought impossible to innovate and today nothing comes as a surprise. Even when people start talking about a cashless society it has not the effect of a shock. Indeed, over the past decade, digital payments have taken off, and in some countries its not even necessary to have a single cash. A cashless society might sound like something out of science fiction, but the process is already on its way. Several powerful forces are moving to a cash – free world, including governments and large financial services companies. This revolution is turning cash into an endangered species. As for every innovation these days, it will take the economy to a more efficient level – but it also poses new problems. There are significant benefits in the cashless society as: lower crime because there’s no tangible money to steal; less money laundering because there’s always a paper trail; less time and cost associated with handling paper money as well as storing and depositing it; and of course easier currency exchange when traveling internationally. However, on the other hand, it is mandatory to address several social issues before giving up on cash entirely. Electronic payment systems may be vulnerable to technical failures, power blackouts and cyber – attacks. Moreover, in a cashless economy the poor, the elderly and country folk may be left behind. In addition, eradicating cash, an anonymous payment method, for a digital system could let governments snoop on people’s shopping habits and private titans exploit their personal data. There are several nations already making moves to eliminate cash, with the input coming from both consumers and government institutions. Sweden: cash payments are only 15% of retail sales in the country. There is common to see signs that say “no cash accepted” and cash no longer handle cash. Sweden is becoming a model for a modern cashless society. Consumers are mostly happy, but the poor and elderly still struggle with an electronic world. In, also, China digital payments rose from 4% of all payments in 2012 to 34% in 2017. Last, the phase-out of cash should be gradual. For a period of ten years, banks should be obliged to accept and distribute cash in populated areas. This will buy governments time to help the poor open bank accounts, educate the elderly and beef up internet access in rural areas. The rush towards digital money is the result of spontaneous demand and innovation. To pocket all the rewards, governments need to prepare for the day when crumpled bank notes change hands for the last time.
Read MoreAuthor: Future Manager Research Center Italy, at present, is facing a multitude of challenges, such as a slow economic recovery, political instability and high unemployment. There is also a large generation gap between the wealthy and retired, with many young people struggling for employment. Interesting, also, the status of the so-called Millennials. Let’s find out more. Everyone is trying to reach Millennials out, to understand their behaviours. Big companies are observing them from some quite time now so they can understand how to attract and retain the most innovative ones; they want to collaborate with millennials in finding new ways of doing business. Millennials are a specific category, they are the ones always at the edge, always trying to find new ways to get inspired, they base their communication on images rather than words, they are fast, innovative and always informed about the latest technology or apps that can ease they life out. Even so, researches demonstrate that their situation, in Italy, is quite precarious. They feel like the “last ones” of the social stratification: they do not feel appreciated, they do not get the credits they deserve, and they feel exploited in a labour market that has the lowest salaries in Europe, in a country that does’ not offer engaging projects, and that is not innovative enough. Millennials are conscious about all this and these are the reasons why they prefer to go abroad to find new opportunities, to feel satisfied, to build up their future, to feel like they are participating somehow in changing the world and at the moment, based on their opinions, Italy cannot offer all this. There are thousands of youngs that, every year, leave Italy to go abroad and, usually, the ones that depart are the most talented ones, the ones that hope to find abroad a working environment that can stimulated their intellect. The innate characteristics of the Millennials is celebrating their success, living in a more careless way, feeling winners all the time and this is what builds up their success. However, the results of a recent research demonstrate that only 4 up to 10 young people feel this way. What affects, the most, their life-style and success are two major factors: financial difficulty (51%), lack of meritocracy in the labour market (41%), on trial also the lack of stimulus and the educational path that is too much based on factual knowledge. This is becoming a real problem for the country since the government spends time and investments in education not having than a return. Millennials leave for better perspectives and Italy loses competences, necessary for its progress What millennials are looking for is a labour market that recognises their efforts and gives them credit for their job. A labour market where meritocracy is the foundation, based on which a person can grow professionally or not. In order to attract and retain talents within the millennials category, the Italian labour market should think of innovative strategies. It is important to keep up with the times and technology by offering on-demand solutions but it is fundamental that they are simple to use. In addition, Millennials are not so young any more, thery are not single city-dweller on the contrary, they status has changed. The government and the labour market should start to think about them as Parents (Parennials) for example. Equipping Millennials with tool to handle new challenges (like parenting) is essential for the market to remain engaged with this target audience.
Read MoreAuthor: Future Manager Research Center This is known as the era of social media. We all have a virtual account, either we use it actively or not. And sometimes we feel obligated to be present in every existing social media or app otherwise we think we would be cut of, like we wouldn’t be participating, somehow, in the world. Indeed, most people have forgotten how it is not to have an account, how it is not to share every single moment of our day on Instagram, how it is not be “likes” addicted. Yes, because social media represent a second reality, where we have to perform as for the real life. We create expectations and we have to live up to it. But, we also use this second reality as a redemption, a way to feel better than in real life, a reality where we constantly are looking for approval. It is a vicious circle that risks our mental health. We all know Instagram and we know it is the most used social media nowadays. Not only because it is the most interactive and attractive app until know, since it works mainly through images but also because it has become a real working platform. Influencers work through Instagram and they use Followers and Likes as indicators of their success. It is through these two indicators that brands decide either to rely on one influencer or another for the promotion of their products. But, lets see in detail why did Instagram decide to hide likes and what does it mean? Well first of all let’s go through how exactly the hiding likes work. Instagram didn’t delete the possibility of leaving a like, so the possibility of expressing a reaction to the posts, it simply is hiding likes. Users don’t have anymore the possibility of seeing how many likes a pic gets. Only the person that administrates the account can see it. “We want Instagram to be a platform where everybody can feel free to express themselves. This means to help people bring attention on the pics and videos, to focus on the content and not so much on how many likes they get. We are testing this new option on more than one country and we want to see from our global community how this initiative can improve their experience on Instagram”, declares Tara Hopkins, Head of Public Policy Emea of the social network property of Facebook. As declared for Instagram this is just an experiment and it is not active on all countries. The main goal is to neutralize the addiction from likes of many users. Indeed, Instagram bases this decision on a sociological research of Kaspersky. Based on the results of the research, 61% of the users declared that they used actively the social to feel better but 57% of them declared that they couldn’t find, on the platform, what they were looking for; only 31%, meaning 1 user out of 3, claimed that they were not worried about the number of likes they could get when posting something. What’s even more disturbing is the fact that many of the users put on risk their own privacy on many levels and all of this just to get more likes. Eventually, the interviewed, stated that due to the social they communicate less with their parents (31%), their children (33%), their partners (23%), their friends (35%) and their colleagues (34%). But, as we stated before, this mostly affects the ones that work with Instagram, Influencers. And this is exactly why most of them believe that this is just a temporary experiment. The social has a convenience in the publicity that Influencers do; the success of a sponsored post depends on the engagement of the users, and if it is not possible to count likes, Instagram could risk a drop on the publicity spending. On the other hand, hiding likes, could be economically beneficial for Instagram. The app earn on publicity but many influencers know how to work around the system so they can get paid directly from the brands. A drop on likes on their post could diminish the possibility of the companies to work directly with the influencers and convince them in investing more in sponsored advertisement. Surely, this will have a huge impact on the Influencer marketing. Not being able to see the rates of their likes would make difficult for brands to decide either they want to work with an influencer or not. So Instagram is aware of the fact that it will cause some inefficiencies on the immediate but on the long term it would be understood and it simply will bring the attention on other details. To measure the social validation they will use numbers of “followers, comments and shares”. Also, one of the hypothetical solutions is using a monitoring tool. The conclusion for now is that Influencers shouldn’t be worrying, the influencer marketing would still be a trend, it simply would change how the content administrator will analyse the performance of their posts. As for the “simple” users it has been proved that there is a significantly drop in likes. This isn’t a surprise. Research prove that people, specially teens, are significantly more likey to like a photo if other people liked it too. This behaviour is attributed to peer pressure. Still, Instagram belives that removing likes will encourage people to pursue creativity, rather that chase approval.
Read MoreAuthor: Future Manager Research Center The most technological protest ever happened from 2019 to 2020. The absolute protagonist were the youngest. The Hong- Kongers are known as the most technological people on the planet and it does not surprise us that they have brought their fight on a total different level. An opposition like this has never been seen and the protestors are well organized. The young people decided to use anything they have at their disposal: from common tools as umbrellas (in order to defend themselves from the cameras and the tear gas), dark glasses (so they cannot be identified), safety helmet and anti- gas mask; to more sophisticated tools as using social media and apps to organize themselves in groups and give some sort of guidelines on how to behave. The main scope, indeed, was to remain anonymous, so they are very cautious in every action they take. They are trying to protect themselves on different levels. One of the most popular items they are using are the hand- held laser pointers, which emit powerful beams of green and blue light. This is used to confuse police officers, scramble facial recognition cameras and deter people from taking photos amid political turmoil. This is the strategy that is being used against law enforcement cameras. Also, the protestors did not save any text message or contact on their phone and try to hide their communications. One of the principal apps they were using to coordinate themselves was Telegram, they created small groups and designated singular “dispatch rider” to disseminate information. But, despite their attempts to hide their communications, somehow, Telegram has been used against them; this is not enough to stop the most technological protestors ever. They have turned up to a new app that works through Bluetooth, Bridgefy. Bridgefy is the new communication app they are using in order to organize the groups and protests. This new app allows them to communicate with each other without internet connection, so the Chinese Police cannot intercept their messages. Bridgefy uses a mesh network, which links together users’ devices allowing people to chat with others even if they are in a different part of the city, by hopping on other users’ phones until the message reaches the intended person. Not only the protestors of Hong- Kong used technology at its potential but they, also, made Art one of their weapons. Through their evocative Graffiti they tried to give a message of unity. Nowadays, we can find, on the walls of Hong-Kong, a lots of colourful, beautiful posters of the protest: they are ironic and combative, inspired by the Japanese mangas and cinematographic flyers. These posters are created by professionals or simple amateurs that love art. This massive protest became highly symbolic and everyone is giving their contribution. A local artist offered to provide free tattoos of the symbols of the protest. Everyone is getting a tattoo; they are choosing different images that represent the protest (umbrella, the orchid flower, eye patch) of these past three months. They want an indelible mark to show one day to their children as proof that they have been part of the most technological protest of the last decade. These are the Hong- Kongers, the most leading- age demonstrators that have produced an art of the protest and through their stubbornness have won this important battle.
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