Corporations (1/3)

INVESTING
Instead of discrediting the French workers, who are well trained and efficient, one should rather look toward the other end of the chain: the chief executives. Instead of investing in new capacities, new products, new technologies—in short, doing capitalism—these gentlemen produce virtual market value, take over competitors so as to strengthen their situations toward their clients and providers, give themselves overgenerous salaries in keeping with their capacities ... which, in fact, they themselves have rated (the shareholders’ power is grossly overestimated), and show that they possess the biggest … car or yacht in the harbor at Saint-Tropez. Hence my question: when are those economic elites going to be worthy of the citizens’ respect and equal to the responsibilities that, most of the time, they have received as their birthright through daddy’s network?

STRESS AT WORK
Employees will be a good deal less stressed when the management fad has shifted, that is, when Human Resources managers and CEOs have understood that relationships of trust need to be created between employers and employees, so as to release the employees’ potential for creativity, autonomy, self-assessment, and the crucial feedback needed regarding work progress, the market situation, the quality of providers, clients’ preferences, etc. The executive’s respect for the employees brings about a job well done and the employee’s satisfaction. It’s high time we abandoned the work relations inherited from the 19th century. If we don’t, executives harvest strike actions, absenteeism, faults hidden from the foreman, production delays revealed at the last minute, interpersonal tensions in the company, etc. So, let’s select the right way of making money, and everybody wins: shareholders, managers, employees, the tax authorities, the country.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP
The President of the Republic is quite right when he wants to rehabilitate and promote the spirit of entrepreneurship.
One of the ways to do so would be to set up a personal bankruptcy system copied on the one that exists in the United States. This involves limiting the entrepreneurs’ losses to their assets at the time of the bankruptcy and giving them a certain amount of cash to start again. In France, liabilities are for life: the bankrupt entrepreneurs who start earning again have to settle past debts. The system whereby debts are assets-limited in LLCs/PLCs is often mere delusion as banks are quick to require personal security from the shareholders or even the salaried executives.
Another way to renew the entrepreneurship dynamics is to introduce more teaching about companies in general, technological, and technical high schools. Indeed, in the economic and social sciences curriculum, the mechanisms of the state economy are overemphasized at the expense of the mechanisms of the economy of companies. Surely, schools are not intended to train ENA graduates only … and even those technocrats need to know the mechanisms of a company!

SERGE TCHURUK / ALCATEL’S CEO
On the occasion of Serge Tchuruk’s departure, I do hope that the media will put together an informed assessment (evolution of world market capitalization, the earnings of leaders/managers/employees, the job situation, innovations’ tally in relation to competitors of similar size, final competitive position, future in the industry) of this individual’s 13 years of absolute reign over what used to be a jewel of the French industry. Employees and small shareholders have the right to know. But who was entitled to remove this Attila? Where were the majority shareholders and administrators? Who ended up the real victims of the French back-scratching capitalist game?

REDISTRIBUTION OF BENEFITS TO THE EMPLOYEES
Mr. Hamon, one needs to distinguish, on the one hand, increasing the Smic [guaranteed minimum wage], and on the other hand, increasing salaries by means of the redistribution of up to 33% of the benefits. The issue is to find a means to increase the purchasing power, but obviously in those corporations that can make it, that are not going to go bankrupt or to relocate because of overheads that are too high. The benefits-based redistribution should be considered by the manager as a variable cost that disappears in the event of difficulties. Moreover, to link in equal parts the interest of shareholders (33%), managers (33% of reinvestment into self-financing to develop the company), and employees (33% if they have succeeded collectively) means that one can legally ensure the motivation and cohesiveness of all these groups which theoretically each possess their own divergent logic, and all this in their own, well understood, interest!
Another winner is the State: 1° maintenance of social cohesion, 2° growth of corporate assets, favorable for the future, 3° maintenance of the job market, hence fewer social security payments to be redistributed, 4° benefit-based taxation levels maintained through a healthy private sector.

BACK-SCRATCHING CAPITALISM
One knows and one can see that, in France, the control of CEOs of large corporations is not, in reality, carried out by the boards of directors. This is what is known as back-scratching capitalism, i.e. the directors are CEOs who choose each other from among their own ranks, hence help each other out. Consequently, since the rules regarding private sector management have been well and truly circumvented and invalidated, the State needs to step in, as usual.
I propose that the services of the Department of Economy and Finance should keep a close eye on at least the CAC_40 corporations, and check each year the health parameters of their respective industries against the previous year’s and their (often foreign) competitors’. Should excesses be noted over a couple of consecutive years, detailed and intelligible reports should then be transmitted to political leaders, the media (radio, newspapers and magazines, TV), the major shareholders and the unions (employees are the first ones concerned). This way, at least, should the position of the unsuitable CEO be confirmed, it will be done transparently, and the employees made redundant and the cheated small shareholders will not be able to turn against the State!

CONDITIONALITY OF PUBLIC AID TO COMPANIES
We should urgently find a way of redistributing some purchasing power to employees. One way could be to place conditions on public aid to companies at the start of wage negotiations; companies could be given a 3-month maximum deadline for the conclusion of the negotiations. Should the unions and/or the majority of employees still be dissatisfied, the State would redistribute the unpaid aid into social measures in favour of the less privileged.

HEULIEZ
So now, we’ve clearly understood: the government is imposing unattainable conditions on its temporary aid to Heuliez in order to make … Ségolène Royal lose all credibility!

FRANCE TELECOM
May I suggest that a parliamentary commission be appointed to investigate the management methods within companies that are losing market shares and killing their employees (France Télécom, Alcatel) and those that are innovating and winning (Apple, Google). In particular, the members of parliament would check the following hypothesis: nowadays, winning management methods are those that insist upon cooperation within teams, while losing methods are those that exacerbate competition according to the claims of a neo-Darwinian social philosophy (which historians and philosophers know to have contributed to the early stages of Nazism in Europe).
A logical follow-up to the investigation would be to wonder why there are so many would-be fascists among middle managers and executives in France: these elite groups are selected from among the prépas [special classes preparing students for the Grandes Écoles entrance exams], which represent a system based on frustrations and bullying which puts youngsters who enjoy cooperating off and exacerbates sadistic tendencies in those who are responsive. This is what is called having a competitive spirit – and it’s not invented. At the end of the investigation, our representatives will be in a position to demand the abolition of the prépas and the merging of the human and financial resources of both the prépas and universities, under the authority of universities.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP vs TAXES
During today’s 13.00 p.m. news bulletin, you interviewed economist Bernard Maris, whom I regard highly and respect. I have read his anti-textbook of economics, volume 1.
At one point, you asked him whether the tax system was well utilized in France. He answered that it should be more redistributive. Why not – but this is largely insufficient to ensure the prosperity of the population. It is necessary to grow the “pie” so that each redistributed slice is bigger (and more equitable too, fair enough); otherwise, we are all equitably sharing … poverty!
What is needed is to develop private entrepreneurship: classes at school and university levels, promoting training courses / work study programs, the one-stop-shop for new business creation, centralized service counselling for all routine management activities (Ursaf, unedic, pensions, cpam, and various taxes). Then, there should be banking services for SMEs and VSEs like OSEO [French small and medium enterprises support public agency] to which one should add an insurance-credit-investment public organization similar to OSEO ; in other words, there should be a public BANK for SMEs + an INSURANCE function and e-administration, and a personal bankruptcy program for entrepreneurs, similar to the one found in the United States: Once the bankrupt entrepreneur’s personal assets have been seized, s/he can start again with a small cash sum and no longer has to reimburse non-expunged debts from future earnings; all this, of course, provided that the entrepreneur has been honest and sincere, otherwise the next stop is the courts!
I would argue that it is not the enterprises that should go towards the public administration, but rather the administration that should strive to make life easier for entrepreneurs who cannot be expected to be specialists in a technical field, sometimes after studying for a long time, and, in addition, experts in the numerous French administrative systems! On a day-to-day basis, this is extremely hard … In return for the intelligibility efforts on the part of the State, one evidently finds the payment of the corporation tax and others.

EDF
Historically, as soon as they were strong enough, French companies have given in to the American pipe dream; they wanted to play in the Big League, that is, the United States: Renault, Peugeot, Vivendi, Alcatel, etc. What happened?
Total collapse! It would seem that Americans are more chauvinistic than they’re prepared to admit and that invisible barriers are working: the legal system, public financing (in big structures, e.g. Boeing vs. EADS), networks, etc.
Beware the awakening of those employees tantamount to civil servants of the French State!

EDF [main electricity generation and distribution company in France]
On the whole, we enjoy relatively few power cuts: 10 hours … per year on average, except for the black spot in Lozère (35 hours/year), where more work is needed.
It would be unwise to resize the maintenance program in EDF so as to target zero faults, as this would disproportionately increase maintenance costs, which would evidently affect the end users’ bills …

POSTAGE STAMPS
One could lessen the employees’ stress levels and reduce the mail delivery costs by offering 3 decreasing rates of charge corresponding to 3 guaranteed delivery times: one 24 h delivery expensive stamp, one 48 h delivery normal stamp, one 72 h delivery cheap stamp.

CANAL+ [French premium pay television channel]
Hello Mr Canal+
I’d love to find the following theme channels included in your TV bouquet:
- A DIY/ professional construction/ interior and exterior design channel
- A gardening / plants / pharmacopoeia / medicine channel
- A fashion / make-up / perfume / watches / bags / jewellery / hairstyling / shoes / tableware / shopping / painting / photos / antique dealers / arts / craft industry channel
- A music (classical / world / rock / pop / jazz / etc.) + dancing (classical / modern / « disco » / « retro » / world / etc.) channel
If these channels do not exist, why not create them?

ELECTRONIC DEVICE INSTRUCTION BOOKLET
I have just purchased a digital camera IXUS 120 IS. It was several days before I decided to use it because I could anticipate a rather laborious start-up process, as with all consumer electronics available these days.
Indeed, it took me over 2 hours to get to use the zoom feature on this compact. I need to specify that I am an electronics engineer + IT + telecoms, and that I spend 3 hours a day surfing the Internet.
What happened? I opened the instructions booklet, all in French, and through active reading, searched for the word ZOOM, surely an essential function on any camera! First, I scanned the 34 pages of the booklet. No word ZOOM to be spotted anywhere … Then I looked for the table of contents, which I eventually found on page 7 (!), following a flood of near useless warnings with modern technology, as if you did not know that 99.9% of consumers will never go through a costly court case against you, unlike, perhaps, the US spirit that no one wishes to see carried into the legal domain ☺. The difficulties are not over: there is no word ZOOM in the table of contents. Reading through once more leads one to understand that one should search for « Taking pictures » on page 18. Once on page 18, still no word ZOOM; one needs extra searching to find the word hidden in the body of the text, in small letters … and in the 3rd paragraph at the bottom of the page, under “Compose the picture”. You must admit that, in terms of ergonomics, you would really have to try to do worse … or else never test your ergonomics with a representative panel of the target population rather than the graduates of your own company! Now, once found in the booklet, the explanation is crystal clear.
On a positive note, here are my own suggestions:
1) Luxury booklets, A4 size, with photos, well classified information, a quick start section followed by comprehensive explanations
2) A DVD video showing the use of each button and the realization of each function.
3) Both, it should not be too expensive and could be highly profitable through facilitating purchase repetition ☺

JEAN-MARIE MESSIER
Behind bars, all rogue chief executives!
He should be made an example of, to bring morality into business.
His type of rogue behavior wrecks the social contract upon which our market society is built!
The same applies to Bernard Tapie, who, even worse, corrupts politics …

ESTABLISHING MULTI-SERVICE CENTRES IN SMALL MUNICIPALITIES
I cannot understand why a major retailer/distribution franchise does not set up an outlet in small rural and mountain municipalities.