I’ve been slacking a little on the blogging, but that’s mainly cos I’ve had a crazy schedule, early morning to late nights! Just some fast impressions here while my brain still works. I’ve taken some notes, and I’ll probably post more in detail once I get more time.
Day 1: Visiting Atos-Origin, an IT Service Integrator firm, handles all IT for the Olympic games. Very impressive presentation. The overall impression I received from their IT services was that they tend to be very risk-adverse, which is good considering the impact of screwing up the Olympic games, and they are proud of working closely with the public sector, including the French version of Google Earth, IGN.fr
The day continued with a visit to the Chamber of Commerce, in a historical building that looked like it was another tourist palace! Current impressions: The Vice-Chairman of the Paris Chamber of Commerce & Industry in charge of Education & Training is doing his best to express the welcome of Americans to France, extremely friendly. He, and the presenters, were pushing the image that Paris is technologically advanced, including in the IT/software fields, biotech, and animation/entertainment. The fact that they are trying to push French as a business language is interesting as I haven’t seen that happening much in the U.S., where English is the primary language, and people from other countries still use English to conduct business. I also find it interesting that the government helps out with businesses and innovations, funding research labs and "Tech Clusters" to help new ideas get off the ground, but the lack of angel investors in France prevents many ideas from launching. Many innovators are leaving France to SV in order to obtain funding for their ideas
An interesting takeaway from the dinner I got from Professor Piret (I think) was the idea that combining knowledge of two different fields in a single mind is what makes each individual very valuable to a company. Two people with specialities can get together, but since they do not share a common point of view, they would not have as many insights, or be as productive as one person who can see two different fields. This is definitely something I’ll have to investigate in enhancing my own career.
There is a "wealth tax" in France, 0.55% of your net worth from over 700,000 euros. A lack of investors could be simply that the wealth leaves the country once they hit the wealth tax!
Day 2: Visiting BNP Paribas, the largest bank in the Eurozone. Our host was the CEO & President of BNP’s new technology subsidiary that is based in the U.S. The banking industry here is very risk adverse, not wanting to compromise on security for the convenience of their customers. Also interesting is that the French are very brand loyal, staying members of a single bank for their entire lives, even when they may work for a rival bank! Competing on services may just not be something that is necessary since all banks have the same service set, and you have customers basically for life! Still, perhaps competing on services during the "customer attraction" points as identified in the presentation might be something worth investigating.
Final stop of day two was at ESCP-EAP, the European school of business. An incredible campus right in the middle of Paris. One thing that struck our whole group was how young everyone was, in their early 20s, unlike the typical U.S. MBA candidate. The internship here is where they get their foothold into their first jobs. Professor John Kennedy gave us a good overview of the France economy. Some interesting points: Employing people in France is expensive, with an additional 40% of the base salary going to social security in France. Due to this added cost, companies expect higher productivity, and invest significantly in capital equipment(technology). With a higher productivity, we end up with less employment, and hence, high unemployment (21+% for the under-25 crowd!) This is leading to young adults leaving for places like London in order to find jobs to survive.