This news article was originally written in Spanish. It has been automatically translated for your convenience. Reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate translation, however, no automated translation is perfect nor is it intended to replace a human translator. The original article in Spanish can be viewed at Qué hacemos para que nos encuentren

What do so that they find us

Iñaki Garmendia, president of Ega Master 18/09/2012

Marcelo Gangoiti —founder of the Centre of FP of Somorrostro and that gives his name to the business prizes that organise SPRI, Cebek and the Deputation Foral of Biscay— spoke sixty years ago of the importance of the human capital, of the education like crowbar of change, to invest in knowledge, to specialise to compete in the international field and to adapt the offer to the demand of the market. Marcelo Gangoiti, that had coincided in the seminar of Vitoria with the generation humanist of José Miguel Barandiaran, Manuel Lekuona and José María Arizmendiarrieta, did not have precisely a curriculum academic of economic bias but already barruntaba in the decade of the fifty terms that for nothing were still coined in the business slang.

However, the fact that terms like innovation, investment, internationalisation, competitiveness, knowledge, human capital or orientation to the customer present us now with a halo of novelty, does not mean that conceptually they are new. The good do is so ancient like the own humanity and of a form or another has been always present in the future of the Basque company at least in the last five centuries. The spades in Flandes that painted Velázquez with reason of the surrender of Breda were of Basque manufacture. Perhaps never it has given shop window marketiniano more attained.

In 1986, coinciding with the centenary of his foundation, the University of Deusto organised a cycle of conferences with the generic title of Man and Company, and an at least brave subhead: “New business horizons to the year 2000”. The conferences were published with an introduction of Dionisio Aranzadi, and the one who later would be the author of The art to be employer (1992) quoted already to Tom Peters (To Search of Excellence, 1982) and advanced the four keys to reach the business success: innovar without ceasing, improve the human factor, lead and mimar to the customer. Four keys that are today of full actuality but that does not seem that they achieved then excessive predicamento practical in the entramado economic-business of our surroundings.

Twenty-five years later, the philosopher bilbaíno Daniel Innerarity desbroza in his last essay (The democracy of the Knowledge. By an intelligent society, 2011) appearances related with the gestión of the knowledge in the society of the knowledge, the scientific citizenship, the intelligence of the economic crisis or the value of the creativity and, with regard to the concept of the innovation, aims: “it does not suffice with that there is good ideas so that it can speak of innovation. An innovation takes place when the idea translates in a new product or service and is accepted in the market”.

Adds, besides, that “the innovation is not a privilege of a determinate scientific elite or cultural”, neither is the radical change with regard to the already known, but it is rather the continuous improvement of a succession of small adecuaciones secuencialmente identified between yes, in which all of one or another form can participate and take part: “The innovations are an interactive product. Any inventor genial produces them in scoop. By very powerful or creative that can be an individual genius, an innovation is not imputable to a solitary actor, but it is due to the integration of the diverse practical (between them, the individual creativity, of course) in which it articulates the division of the work”. It attributes to Aristotle the appointment of “are what do day in day out; so that the excellence is not an act, but a habit”, sentence that the Anglo-Saxon culture the done his and minimalista eat: ‘We plough what we do'.

Now, as it aims Daniel Innerarity, advanced it Dionisio Aranzadi 25 years ago or the intuyó Marcelo Gangoiti in the decade of the fifty, is the market, the customer in definite, the one who validates our level of excellence, innovation, competividad and quality of service. The customer is the one who commands, as never, in the society of the excess of information and the success no estriba already in finding it, but in achieving that he find us to us.

If something is really innovando regarding the times of Marcelo Gangoiti and Dionisio Aranzadi, and proposes it rightly Daniel Innerarity, is that, as well as it remained does decades cleared the aldaba needy customer looks for provider, valid in the times of autarchy and physical customs with tariffs, is likewise already surpassed the formula of the classical commercial era, needy provider looks for customer, and us adentramos in the tesitura to manage the new paradigm of the ciber-market: what do so that when the customer look for in the network to somebody like me, find me to me and no to another.

The Basque offer —was of industrial products, tourist or of services— hardly is a grain of sand in the global market. With all probability never before went comparatively smaller but, paradojas of the life, neither never before had a greater potential market. The question now is to hit with the suitable answer to the question of the million: what can do so that when the hypothetical customers more shoot look for information in the network, are we those who facilitate them a first channel of entrance to our products and services.

The one who gives first gives twice, and the one who attain to position in the network of notable form, offering fast information, clear and free, will have achieved to visit more than the half of the way in the always longed for and complex meeting with the customer.