Public tenders should not be a potential crisis factor
Public tenders have been issued by government organizations to take benefit of so called “market workings” or, in reality: dive under any reasonable price to get the order and try to adjust later. What government really does by chosing mainly on price is to introduce speculative and potentially dangerous behavior in entrepreneurship. A common practice is to find ways to get the cheapest entry knwoing that this will get the deal. A bribe or just undercutting by planning inappropiate material usage or hiring very cheap, unskilled labor forces, whatever will do the trick.
Often we find that school or city busses are not maintained correctly, truck drivers make too long hours, balconies collaps due to wrong cementation, roads are rained away because some “forgot” to put an expensive substance into the tarmac. It all seems to go well for a while until a bridge collapses, a bus collides, a plane crashes or a building falls over. Many death, years of investigation and all the cover ups to avoid pinpointing the real causes. Just like the banks did for many years until it all blows up into our face.
Public tendersneed to include the three basis world agreements:
- Continuous iImprovement if health and vitality of the human being
- Minimization of usage of critical resources
- The company needs to present itself as a true added value for society
With those three statements as framework within which any tender has to be executed the government takes responsibility to sustainability in all its projects. If a company tenders it should first comply with this before the actual proposition is taken into account. Price is not the main determination factor but the measurable added value for society is. Like that government will protect its long term interests and companies will learn to behave with ethics and moral, competing for wealth creatin rather than self interests.
Interestingly we have been able to show that ethical behavior according to multidimensional principles does not at all make products more expensive or companies less profitable, on the contrary. The fact that responsible behavior is shown in the proposals but all in the commitment and execution those companies tend to be highly desired. Their quality of work reduces risks and hence liabilities that reduces insurance costs, pressure of regulation, etc. And that is in the interest of all of us.
Obsolete society
The capitalist world that develops welfare through a chain of added values up to the end user with taxes on every shackle has proven its excellence over the years. What has not been so effective is the political capacity to use that chain for permanent social renewal. In fact over the last twenty or thirty years we have sat back and let our western organisation grow obsolete.
When we look at the world wide stress on natural resources, movements for cradle to cradle, etc we can only conclude that we have used our intellect to cure symptoms without actually addressing the potential problems of old social patterns that we had chosen. That very costly political attitude caused years of inflation and the crossing of existantialist lines of humanity. It is time to do something about it as our society as we now know it is cracking up in all places and needs to be replaced by a new organization .
Roads with individual cars, traffic lights, traffic jams, etc, are a potential hazard to human health, a killer for the environment, a inflationary probem and the most unsustainable solution one can think of. Around 1890, when we started to replace horses with cars for the first time, we could not forsee such problems but in the 60’s and 70’s, when traffic started to pile up and we ran into the first world oil crisis, we could have come to innovative conclusions. We did not because of the powerful rise of the car industry and the economic dependence on this world through labor, oil consumption related to taxes, etc. The more cars the better and politics became the largest ostrich of the world putting its head as deep as possible into the ground. Now the credit crisis has shown the lack of morality of the past by avoiding gradual or in depth innovation and now we have to address issues of severe problems all at the same time and with urgency.
When we look at housing we see the same problems. In many countries houses are built side by side, avoiding heights. The prices of the houses have been artificially pushed up by keeping a calculated shortage and hence stimulating the unreal inflation of economies. But the housing issue is obsolete now because it is also agains any rule of sustainable sensitivity. New innovative housing solutions need to be introduced fast to make sure that we can safely maintain our wealth and health with the available resources. Infrastructures? The same story, etc. etc.
And we can go on like that in every sector that we know. In fact we can only conclude that society is due for a total remake. We need to make a step by step plan to transform and rebuilt society around multidimensional disciplines of sustainability. We have not to worry about money because we have shown that we can create that at will and every investment in innovation of real values will revert directly back into the economies through the capitalist nature of our organizations and the added value of multidimensional innovation. The more we invest, he more we would get back through efficiency, health and wealth development.
But before we can do that maybe humanity has to suffer just that little bit more to become totally convinced that the old ways simply do not work anymore, that the old leaders have to be replaced by new ones or open up their eyes and we all need to get back to work hard to build up the society of our dreams.
Poverty policy is key to capitalist success
Most business policies focus on welfare and growth communities because that is where the money goes around. Hardly any of the business plans involve the markets of the poor. The companies that do actually included those markets structurally in their policies tend to score better on the Multidimensional Index of the 5K Group. Why is that?
There is nothing noble about combating poverty. It is good business practice. During the credit crisis we have seen the down fall of big, so called “solid”, institutions s.a. banks due to a moral crisis rather than financial. Typically this moral crisis was caused over the backs of the financially unstable and unwealthy. Does this indicate a contradiction in my argument? Not at all.
The risktaking of the banks by entering bad credit zones was caused by greed and self interests of high level executives who covered their backs by insuring bad credits with others misplacing the trust relationship in the chain. As the entire chain was based on the same material principles of greed the business was a pure speculation that unnoticed inflated the ballon of risk until it exploded into the face of the world. One can hardly argument that all this was a policy to help the poor.
When we design a policy to develop markets with poor people we do that from the moral multidimensional principle of the ideal market development through healthy and motivated people. To achieve this poverty needs to be eradicated from the entire world. We do not talk only about poverty in complex, unstable, tribe oriented third world countries. We talk also about the growing poverty in the rich welfare countries. When a company decided to address this market too, not just by making products available to it but by truely developing a strategy to address the issue effectively, it shows moral integrity. Nobody will ask the company to finance such development our of their own pocket because such strategies of sensitivity to the reality of the world finds many partners in government, institutions and foundation to join forces for a common goal.
The willingness to address such markets by connecting with other organizations and creating serious policy shows and develops an authentic and responsible company culture that is filled with sense and that subsequently will radiate also into the wealthier markets where competition is strong and one does not distinguish anymore through price or quality but with company integrity and authenticity. And this is the basis of any sustainable success and therefore the reason for a company to score high in our Index.
