To the horror of followers of Ivan Milas’s school of ‘a kilo of brain for two marks’, companies that intend to survive in the coming year have only unconventional weapons left, those in the minds of entrepreneurs and managers.
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Written by: Miodrag Šajatović |
From this Government, no help for the business sector should be expected in 2011. Anyone who relies on the authorities to find a solution for exiting the recession is naive. |
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Business 2010 is over. Many in the business community will disagree with this statement because the Christmas and New Year shopping season is still to come. But let’s be honest: there is no serious argument that can encourage consumers to go crazy in December more than they did last year at this time. The projected GDP decline of two percent in 2010 will also leave its mark on holiday restraint from excessive spending. For few, the end of the year will compensate for the shortfalls in plans over the previous eleven months. No matter how much effort is needed to extract the maximum from the end of the year, entrepreneurs and managers who want to survive must already be in 2011. They among them who base survival in the coming year on growth announced by Prime Minister Kosor and Minister Šuker are obviously prone to fleeing into fiction. They should also be cautious those who hope that with the conclusion of negotiations with the EU, investors will rush to come to Croatia. Even those who believe that early elections will occur have no particularly plausible foothold. The Government Allergic to Knowledge The harsh truth for 2011 is: Do not hope for anything good outside your company. Everything will depend on you and the key people in your company. You have already used conventional business weapons (cost-cutting). In 2011, you will have to resort to unconventional instruments suitable for local conditions. To the horror of followers of Ivan Milas and his famous statement about ‘a kilo of brain for two marks’, in Croatia, by force of circumstance, those with intelligence, education, and international experience will finally come to the fore. When nothing else works anymore – knowledge remains. Of course, it would be excellent if the knowledge society were first introduced to Banski dvori. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to expect that in 2011. This Government seems to be vaccinated against knowledge and capability. Ninety percent of ministers would not meet the employment criteria in a medium-quality company. Ignorance of foreign languages is a disgrace for a country when its ministers cannot communicate with foreigners, but it is even more frightening when it is realized that the lack of that kind of knowledge actually means that half of the ministers in the Croatian Government have never read any professional work that was not written in Croatian! So it is not surprising that anyone can sell them any economic idea. If they had any knowledge, the Prime Minister and her ministers would have already learned how Obama and other world leaders go to sign trade agreements worth tens of billions of dollars and thus, imagine the shame, mix into the free market competition, which various consultants preach as a sanctity in Banski dvori… And in these few years, they would have trained the state apparatus to contract jobs abroad with private entrepreneurs so that they could travel to some country to sign concluded contracts. And not to continue the parody when the president or prime minister leads a dozen entrepreneurs and ‘opens the doors’ to some market. And afterwards, of course, nothing happens. Call the ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Since local entrepreneurs are unlucky enough to have capable people in the Government, they have no choice but to double their efforts to compensate for that lack with capable people in their companies. Including themselves. The truth is that the average entrepreneur in Croatia spends half of his creative time chasing debts and fleeing from creditors, but the bar has been raised higher for 2011. They will have to work on their knowledge and skills. In the fat years, numerous sellers of sales skills, strategic management, business excellence, and people management visited companies in Croatia… Many were persistent, not to say boring, like Jehovah’s Witnesses. Wealthier companies accepted some of them, but it was more like, come on, it won’t hurt… When the crisis came, most of those teachers were among the first to be thrown out of companies. Now things are changing dramatically. The economic world, especially burdened by recession in Croatia, has become overly complex. Even naturally gifted entrepreneurs, of whom there are many more in Croatia, cannot overcome obstacles with their God-given intelligence. The way out is in education, rapid acquisition of knowledge, and adopting the practices of the most successful. Teachers need to be re-engaged. Only now, it is necessary to choose those who offer quality, applicable knowledge, i.e., the best global practices adapted to Croatian circumstances. Those who realize this in time may even see 2012. |
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