Editorial Board of “Holistic Marketing Management” (A refereed journal published four times annualy by the School of Management-Marketing of the Romanian-American University) Editor - in - Chief Theodor Valentin PURCĂREA Editorial Board
Bernd HALLIER
John SAEE
John L. STANTON
Léon F. WEGNEZ
Managing Director EuroHandels Institute Retail, Germany; President of EuCVoT; President of European Retail Academy; Member of the Astana Economic Scientists Club; Chairman of the Advisory Board of EuroShop; Chairman of the Board of the Orgainvent; Trustee of EHI Retail Institute at GLOBALG.A.P. Association of Management and International Association of Management, USA; Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, the Faculty of Business and Enterprise, Swinburne University of Technology; Member of France’s National Academy of Scientific Research (CNRS) Professor of Food Marketing, Erivan K. Haub School of Business, Saint Joseph’s University Philadelphia, USA; Editor, Journal of Food Products Marketing Secretary General, International Association of the Distributive Trade, AIDA Brussels; Member of France’s Academy of Commercial Sciences, Doctor Honoris Causa of the National School of Political
Science and Public Administration (SNSPA), Bucharest William PERTTULA Levent ALTINAY Dana ZADRAZILOVA Riccardo BELTRAMO Sinisa ZARIC Gabriela SABĂU Hélène NIKOLOPOULOU Vasa LÁSZLÓ Peter STARCHON John MURRAY Kamil PÍCHA Constantin ROŞCA Irena JINDRICHOVSKA
Internet Marketing Professor, College of Business, San Francisco State University, USA Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship, Research Area Leader, Oxford School of Hospitality Management, Faculty of Business, Oxford Brookes University, UK Dean of Faculty of International Economic Relations, University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic University of Turin, Italy University of Belgrade, Yugoslavia Memorial University, Grenfell Campus, Corner Brook, Canada University of Lille 3, France Szent Istvan University, Hungary Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia Faculty of Business, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland
Faculty of Economics,University of South Bohemia in Ceske Budejovice President of Romanian Scientific Society of Management- SSMAR
Deputy Head of Department of Business Economics, University of
Norbert HAYDAM Roxana CODITA Dumitru MIRON Valeriu IOAN-FRANC Iacob CĂTOIU Virgil BALAURE Gheorghe ORZAN
Luigi DUMITRESCU Marius D. POP Petre FILIP Ion VOICU SUCALA Virgil POPA Alexandru NEDELEA Ana-Maria PREDA Ileana PONORAN Ovidiu FOLCUȚ Doinița CIOCÎRLAN Marius Dan DALOTĂ Mihai PAPUC Gheorghe ILIESCU Alexandru IONESCU Olga POTECEA Oana PREDA Nicoleta DUMITRU Monica Paula RAȚIU Costel NEGRICEA
Economics and Management, Prague, Czech Republic Faculty of Business, Marketing Department, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa TUM School of Management, Technische Universität München Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest National Institute for Economic Research, Romanian Academy; Romanian Marketing Association Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest
Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca Dimitrie Cantemir University, Bucharest Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Management and Economic Engineering Department; University of Glasgow, UK, College of Social Sciences, School of Social & Political Sciences; Managing Editor, Review of Management and Economic Engineering Valahia University of Târgovişte Stefan cel Mare” University of Suceava Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University Romanian-American University
Associate Editors Cristina NEAGOE Dan SMEDESCU Alexandra MIRONESCU Art Designer Director Alexandru BEJAN
“Holistic Marketing Management” (A refereed journal published four times annually by the School of Management-Marketing of the Romanian-American University) Volume 3, Issue 1, Year 2013
Content ! Theodor Valentin PURCĂREA - Editorial: Holistic Marketing Managers convicted to bringing data quality expertise, while spending and measuring the return of marketing investment in both, the physical and the second economy William PERTTULA - How internet marketing has changed over the years and what the future will bring. William Perttula interviewed by Theodor Valentin Purcărea Elisabeta Andreea BUDACIA - Internet advertising – current situation and long-term perspective Bernd HALLIER - A European Union-Survey about Vocational Training for Retail and Wholesale Léon F. WEGNEZ - Discours pour la cérémonie de Doctorat Honoris Causa de l’Ecole Nationale d’Etudes Politiques et Administratives (SNSPA) Alina BĂRGĂOANU - LAUDATIO en l’honneur du Professeur Léon F. WEGNEZ à l'occasion de la cérémonie de remise du Titre de Docteur Honoris Causa de l’École Nationale d’Études Politiques et Administratives de Bucarest (SNSPA)
The$responsibility$for$the$content$of$the$scientific$and$the$authenticity$of$the$published$materials$and$opinions$expressed$rests$with$the$author.!
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: Holistic Marketing Managers convicted to bringing data quality expertise, while spending and measuring the return of marketing investment in both, the physical and the second economy
We discussed in our editorials that in order to making change (organizational, operational, commercial) happen presupposes to deal with the environmental changes and to achieve the proper transformation, considering the real pressure of quickly responding to the signs of customers’ changing needs, well understanding the difrequirements, with the whole organization in mind, including both, organizational health-related considerations and performance-related ones. Thinking at the pressure of making holistic marketing organization more adaptable to the rapidly evolving business environment and valorizing opportunities for improvement and survival, let us go back (and to adapt to our topic) to: a) just two questions raised by William Edwards Deming: transformation is necessary for survival (the critical mass of people helping the change, all management levels taking part in this philosophy, and their contributions with adequate proposals); constancy of purpose (what is the purpose, what we all know about the formulated purpose, what we believe about the extent that it affects our work, whom do we answer to). Deming said clearly: “In God we trust. All others must bring data!” b) Peter Rosenwald,1 an industry leader with broad experience2 in every aspect of the application of direct and data-driven marketing to a wide range of businesses, well known for his constant pledge for the necessity of accountability in marketing and CRM, who highlighted the struggling of marketing managers for new rules and measurements to use in the new world of measurable performance: understanding the economics of the marketing continuum and where begins the accountability, determining the allowable cost per name for a customer managers want to go and what is the best and most economical way of getting there, thinking of “contribution come in all forms and sizes, and that testing and archiving are the foundation stone for marketing improvement, considering the most likely prospects are almost always better and less expensive and that the “household” is a better marketing unit than the “individual”, establishing the right balance between catalog customers and prospects, moving the customer up the value ladder and selling a variety of goods, understanding that the prospect is almost always multidimensional.
For the sake of this accountable marketing we noticed (Theodor Purcarea, REBE-FA06-A7.pdf) in 2006 that the 3 having already entered the list of traditional marketing activities and being already proved an increase in demand for evaluations connected to Return ities and advertising which substantially increase the power of the brand in the eyes of the client (if it has been budgets. Three years after, in 2009, we underlined (Theodor Purcarea, REBE-SU09-A4.pdf) the importance of a long term relationship between marketers and customers on the road to “the next society” (a road dotted with many signs / phrases: “new society”, “new reality”, “new economy”, “the new organization”...
1 2 3
Peter Rosenwald - Accountable Marketing: The Economics of Data-Driven Marketing, South-Western Educational Pub; 1 edition, August 13, 2004 www.accountablemarketing.info/author.htm Robert Passikoff - “Rules of Engagement”, www.chiefmarketer.com/rules_engagement_02132006
At the end of 2011, we reiterated the key role played by marketers in better business performance, well understanding the difference between being responsible (in a general sense; you can delegate it) for something and being held accountable (more measurable; you can’t delegate it to anyone), while putting in function the customer-engagement engine by elevating the role of customer insights and using more data rich and analytically intense and quickly responding to the signs of customers’ changing needs, focusing on problem-solving and strategic-marketing skills. As we all know, within the context of organizations developing purchase funnel models (that show how marketing and advertising efforts affect consumer attitudes and behavior) in order to make effective marketing decisions, there is a real need to quantify results, and “one of the major ways results can be measured are by looking at Return on Investment (ROI),4 marketing tactics (such as advertising/promotion mix, media mix, scheduling options, etc.) against marketplace performance (typically reported as sales results)”. CMO can respond to the complex challenges they actually face only by thoughtfully and systematically applying investment fundamentals to marketing, being necessary to boost marketing’s ROI.5 There is no doubt about the importance of reinforcing and embedding ROI thinking in the daily marketing approach. VP of social technologies at Rio SEO and lead instructor of interactive marketing at University of Washington’s Continuing Education Program, attracted our attention, in well-known “Forbes” (http://www.forbes.com/ information about the target audiences and customers of marketing organizations and engaging them in despite of the rise of social media, big-data analytics, and smart mobile devices. Within this context he recommended six “must-dos”: strive to master all digital media; lead the charge on attribution; re-think and then re-invent lifetime value; think and act like a publisher; get your arms around your audience data; think “serendipity,” not “stalking.” 6
SVP of Marketing, BlueKay, this year, 2013, will be the critical junction for ROI, this year channels talking to each other: search, video, social, display, and mobile. Within the same framework, other opinions showed that: real-time customer engagement (Joe Cordo, CMO Extraprise), driven by the rapid shift to cloud-based services and solutions buyer behavior has shifted (Michael Ni, CMO/SVP of Marketing and Products, Avangate), marketers begin to make serious strides in using listening data, check-ins, photos, and other online behaviors (Michael Della Penna, Senior Vice President of Emerging Channels, Responsys), the older half of Gen C will understand the repercussions of the over-sharing they engaged in as teens (Richard Pasewark, CEO, Visible Technologies), marketers understanding customer needs and preferences on mobile will be successful in tapping the potential of this channel (Michael Della Penna, Senior Vice President of Emerging Channels, Responsys). 7
In february this year, a consultant of the digital measurement and data analytics consulting
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use takes a lot of work, management and policing, quality data requiring someone with data quality expertise as well the responsibility and authority to make it happen. In his opinion, taking into account the multiple sources existing today, the process of big data reconciliation should begin at the very source of the data, checking then variances, while segmenting and examining data in chunks, the large volumes of data begging for appropriate large-scale database tools. “A message for today’s leaders”, coming more recently9 a Harvard–Newcomen postdoctoral fellow at the Harvard Business School, Caitlin Rosenthal, concluded that modern managers – compared to Daniel McCallum, the master of organizational design, for the New York and can now access detailed 4 5 6 7 8 9
Accountability: A Guide to Measuring ROI and ROO Across Media, Magazine Publishers of America, New York, www.magazine.org/accountability, www.customores.com/ad_blues/Accountability_Study.pdf David C. Court, Jonathan W. Gordon, and Jesko Perrey - Boosting returns on marketing investment, McKinsey Quarterly, 2005 Ben Straley - Six Things Every CMO Needs To Know In 2013, www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2013/01/03/six-things-every-cmo-needs-to-know-in-2013/ www.mpdailyfix.com/whats-next-in-marketing-bold-predictions-for-2013/?adref=nlt011613 Emanuel Rasolofomasoandro - Data Quality: The Achilles’ Heel of Big Data, February 21, 2013, www.emarketingandcommerce.com/article/data-quality-the-achilles-heel-big-data/1 Caitlin Rosenthal - Big data in the age of the telegraph, McKinsey Quarterly, March 2013
data, often in real time cial networks, but McCallum’s insights are considered still relevant in the age of the Internet.
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We are witnesses and actors of a digitization process which is creating an invisible second economy10 that is vast, automatic, interconnected, and extraordinarily productive. A new economic world is created by this second economy and silently forming alongside the physical economy. The new “action-agile” organization11, thinking holistically and turning data into action on a regular and timely basis is already ready to face the environment this second economy too.
a) Yuri Milner: “It’s not about revenues: The fundamental economics in digital business is scale and margins. The top line has become the bottom line”; b) Philip Kotler: „Marketing takes day to learn. Unfortunately it takes a lifetime to master”; c) Bob Thompson: “But as the world shifts to more and more digital interactions — from commonplace e-commerce and web self-service to newer social and mobile interactions — business leaders must solve not exceed, customer expectations.”12
Editor - in - Chief
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W. Brian Arthur - The second economy, 2011 McKinsey & Company, The second economy.pdf
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Brent Dykes - How to create a data-driven dynasty, 24068_data-driven_dynasty_whitepaper_ue_v10.pdf, Adobe, Mon, March 4, 2013
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Customer Delight in a Digital World: 10 BIG Ideas, CustomerThink Corp., 2012, customerthink_customer_delight_digital_world_10_big_ideas.pdf
Internet Marketing Professor, College of Business, San Francisco State University (William Perttula interviewed by Theodor Valentin Purc rea)
The trend toward internet marketing has been going on since the internet went graphical in 1993 and Amazon began selling online in 1995. There is near universal awareness of this general trend but a large percentage of
San Francisco State University. Over the last dozen years he has taught undergraduate and graduate students in South Korea, Denmark, France and Germany in addition to his students at SFSU. His work inside and outside the classroom has brought him into contact with many professionals in Silicon Valley and others in the high tech Social Media and Cloud Computing for the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce that had panelists from Microsoft, AT&T, and Salesforce.com.
Key Words: Internet marketing, social media marketing, mobile advertising
: M15, M31
HMM Journal recently asked Professor William Perttula about how internet marketing has changed over the
years and what the future will bring.
T.V.P.
W. Perttula: Internet marketing ties together both the creative and technical aspects of the internet, including design, development, advertising and marketing. Internet marketing includes such methods as search engine tive advertising. The old term of integrated marketing has come to include these internet marketing methods to describe how a modern, effective organization conducts its activities with its target audiences.
The key characteristic of the internet is the internet protocol (IP) developed in the seventies to allow information to be broken down and assembled into packets that are sent over cables and wirelessly. Most people have experienced this information on web pages inside of a web browser such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome but there are email programs and other software that use the digital packet architecture of the internet with no need for a browser. For example, users of smartphones are familiar with using text messaging (SMS) and applications (apps) which run outside of a browser yet still run on the internet using the internet protocol.
T.V.P.: Some years ago we read many accounts of how the internet has changed all the principles or rules
W. Perttula: Based on my experience over the last 35 years in marketing I would say that use of the internet has made marketing cheaper and faster -
width speed has come to many more people. As speed has increased the price per megabit to users has fallen year after year. This higher speed, on both wired computers and wireless smartphones, has meant that more elaborate and effective messages can be sent to and received from customers. This has resulting in increased use of the devices by their owners. This use includes uploading of text and graphics and video to sites such as Facebook and YouTube. The price of higher bandwidth has been trending toward zero for two decades. There are several ways to measure bandwidth speed but they are correlated with each other. The Akamai table below shows how high bandwidth capability exists in developed and less developed countries and countries in Asia and Europe and North America.
The State of the Internet Report
T.V.P.
W. Perttula: Any discussion of holistic marketing management must take note of social media and social media marketing. Social media is dominated in 2013 by Facebook after its explosive growth to one billion registered accounts world-wide from its inception in 2004. Other big names in social media are YouTube (owned by Google), Twitter, Tumbler and LinkedIn. Social media marketing is the use of social media in its various forms by organizations trying to communicate with their customers or clients. Social media includes status updates, tweets, social bookmarks, video sharing, and social media’s photo commenting.
The following table shows the dramatic growth of Facebook in a three year period.
Social media marketing relies on its similarity to word of mouth marketing which has always been praised for its effectiveness. Trust and believability are usually characteristics of word of mouth communications. Word of mouth communications usually have great effectiveness but in the past have taken too long to reach a large enough number of customers for businesses that are trying to grow quickly. It is a very rare product or service that can grow at 30 to 40 percent a year relying on its customers or users to praise it to friends in person or by
telephone. Rapid sales or usage growth in the past had to rely on mass advertising to reach mass audiences at great expense. But with social media it is possible to reach large numbers quickly and cheaply with words and pictures. Let us look at three examples.
cloud) that was simple to understand and that worked quickly and reliably. The company encouraged electronwhich is free, in the major tech magazines and other media contributed greatly to growth to 50 million users in 2011 after just three years of operation. grew rapidly despite not using advertising. It quickly dropped advertising on Google with Google Adwords text ads after discovering that it was costing Dropbox charges its users for the service if they store more than 2 Gb of data on the Dropbox servers. Reportedstock in 2013.
Facebook is a service that does not charge its users for its central service of enabling the sharing of personal information and pictures. It obtains about 85% of its revenue from placing advertising on its web pages with most of the remainder coming from Zynga, a game provider that works inside of Facebook, and, more recently, game providers Wooga.com and King.com. The Facebook service of providing an easy to use, multi-media communications platform for hundreds of millions of people brings in relatively little money per user. If we divide its total revenue of $4.62 billion in 2012 by 1 billion users, we see that Facebook has revenue per user of just $4.62 per year or $0.39 per month. Also, Facebook’s average revenue per user (ARPU) growth from 2010 to 2011 was but its operating margins appear to be shrinking. The future does not look particularly bright for Facebook’s revenue growth because users are moving more to mobile devices which have screens too small to effectively display the advertisements that Facebook relies upon for revenue. Companies are being asked to shift from display ads used on full sized web pages to sponsored news feed messages on the mobile version of Facebook. Results from 2012 show revenue growth from mobile ads but this growth may be short-lived. Facebook is also one’s news feed post to the top of one’s friends feed for $7. Membership growth appears to have ended in the United States where the vast majority of Facebook’s revenue comes from but continues in some parts of the rest of the world where the majority of users do not have smartphones capable of working well with Facebook.
Compare this business model to another social networking business that began the year before Facebook: LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a social network focused on business professionals and their networking needs. With 200 million users, mostly in the United States, it is much smaller than Facebook but more focused, which is a good thing in marketing terms. LinkedIn charges businesses to sift through its database to look for possible employof the basic networking service is free to members but there are some premium services for which LinkedIn social networking businesses.
T.V.P.
W. Perttula: Advertising is a major part of communications, the most visible component of a company’s marsponsor. The big consumer products companies may spend one to two billion dollars a year to create and send advertising messages to consumers. World-wide about $500 billion is spent on advertising. company driven messages sent out to mass markets. Often this means that companies are spending money on nontraditional or nonmeasured media to reach customers. Advertising spending in newspapers and magazines, for example, has fallen every year for eight years in the United States. But there has been healthy growth in the digital arena which now accounts for about 20% of total advertising spending. ZenithOptimedia predicts that global internet advertising will grow by 14.6% in 2013 compared to just 1.7% for traditional media. Search marketing, dominated by Google, takes half of all the advertising dollars spend on internet marketing. Marketers debate whether internet advertising’s objective should be to raise customer awareness or lead to direct action or purchase by the customers. In the past the awareness side came from display advertising such as magazine ads or television commercials. Today, awareness (or buzz) is thought to be achieved more through “likes” on Facebook or mentions on Twitter. In the past the direct action came from techniques such as telemarketing, direct mail, or coupons. Today direct action comes from the customer clicking on a link and taking action or making a purchase.
more effective than social media. Social media accounts for just 5 percent of total leads to B2B websites. And, Twitter is the main source of leads outperforming Facebook and LinkedIn 9 to 1. The trend for B2C and B2B is away from big budget advertising campaigns and toward more focused advertising supplemented with relatively inexpensive social media marketing. Social media promotion can be effective at low but not zero costs. All experts in social media advocate having certain employees dedicated to be active in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and possibly other media. Mobile advertising is the real battleground in 2013-2014. The use of smartphones with the capability of displaying text and graphic advertising is growing rapidly in every country. Advertising budgets devoted to mobile devices are tiny but growing. The small screen on a phone or small tablet creates huge problems for advertisers compared to the typical desktop or laptop screen.
Optify 2012 B2B Marketing Benchmark Report http://www.optify.net/ ***********
Internet advertising – current situation and long-term perspective Elisabeta Andreea BUDACIA Abstract: Promotion, considered to be the most spectacular policy of marketing, has proved its efficiency and efficacy throughout time. The new realities of the economic and social life raise the issue of adapting the conventional promotion practices. Advertising is viewed by specialists as an efficient method of promotion because what is transmitted can reach a large audience, in short time, but with a certain financial effort. The internet becomes more and more interesting for producers and traders, especially due to its reduced costs. The increased attention given lately to this advertising medium is determined by a series of factors. The most relevant are the following: the global economic crisis; the more and more harsh competition among the offerers; the consumers’ increased power; etc. Key words: promotion, advertising, e-mail advertising Jel Classification: M31, M37 1. General aspects regarding promotion and advertising as a main component of promotion Promotion, considered to be the most spectacular policy of marketing, has proved its efficiency and efficacy throughout time. The new realities of the economic and social life raise the issue of adapting the conventional promotion practices. The majority of specialists agree that a product can be of high quality, have a competitive price and a well-chosen distribution network, but despite all this another force is necessary and has to intervene in order for the product or its image to reach the hand or the mind of the final consumer. The respective force is called promotion. Enterprises promote their products and services on the market in order to be recognized and appreciated by consumers. They use a variety of methods, among which the most important are: advertising, public relations, sales, the use of brands, selling forces, selling promotion, sponsorship and patronage. These promotion methods can be used by any organization, no matter the field of activity or if they are commercial or non-profit, with a view to communicating and persuading the potential clients to use their products or services.
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The structure of promotional activities Advertising Public relations Promotional manifestations Brand Selling forces Selling promotion Sponsorship Patronage
Fig. no. 1 Promotion components Advertising is viewed by specialists as an efficient method of promotion because what is transmitted can reach a large audience, in short time, but with a certain financial effort. Advertising has a series of characteristics which led, throughout time, to the communicators’ preference to use it: it is directly linked to the product/service; it directly sustains sales; it has an informational and coordination role regarding the activity on the market; it strengthens the position on the market; it uses specific commercial means. Taking into account the broadcast message, the goal and the nature of the product or service for which the enterprise decides to advertise, there are many advertising media that an enterprise can use. The main media through which advertising messages can be transmitted include television, radio, the cinema, publishing houses, the internet, out-door and direct publicity. 2. The Internet – an appealing medium of advertising Among the previously mentioned media, the internet becomes more and more interesting for producers and traders, especially due to its reduced costs. The increased attention given lately to this advertising medium is determined by a series of factors. The most relevant are the following: the global economic crisis; the more and more harsh competition among the offerers; the consumers’ increased power; 2
the consumers’exigencies; the sophisticated tastes; the fact that the consumers take into account the price and the quality/price relation; the similarity among products and brands; the reduced loyalty towards a certain brand; the low efficacy of mass publicity, especially made through television, radio and written media.
Economic crisis
Low efficacy of the other advertising methods
Reduced loyalty towards the brand
Competition among offerers Factors which determined an increased importance of the publicity made through the Internet publicitatii prin internet
The new coordinates of consumer behavior
The quality/price relation
Fig. no. 2 The typology of the factors which increased the importance of Internet advertising In this context, the Internet plays a highly important role as it has the major advantage of real time communication. The impact of the Internet on marketing is a radical phenomenon and its influence is hard to measure. Internet advertising consists of creating static or dynamic messages which appear on the user’s screen. Practically, this type of publicity has many forms: banner, pop – up (a window with a message which appears above the visited site), pop – under (a window which appears after the visitor closed the web page), e-mail.
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Banner advertising Banners are present in the majority of sites and they invite those who are interested to access them in order to be directed towards a certain page on the web. For an increased efficiency, the advertising banner should have an attractive design, a clear message and should not contain a lot of information. In the selection process of the site on which someone buys a banner, the respective person should take into account its specificity. In general, the costs for a banner are directly linked to the average number of visitors during a certain period of time. E– mail advertising One of the most efficient forms of publicity practiced on the Internet is e-mail marketing. A component of direct marketing, “e-mail marketing” is in fact the electronic variant of the “direct mail”. Technically, the persons or the enterprises that are in possession of certain e-mail addresses of other individuals or firms can send a simple text or a more sophisticated informational folder which contains, besides a text and sounds, images or even video sequences. The main advantage is that sending the message practically costs nothing (the price of a phone conversation) and it can be done at the speed of light. However, there is the disadvantage of the inexistence of folders with electronic addresses and the deontology of the internet network which forbids sending a message to a person who did not ask for the respective message. E-mail advertising implies going through certain stages, as it follows: It includes the e-mail address on the business cards, headings, bags or other promotional materials Collecting e-mail addresses of potential clients Discussing with the Internet supplier in order to install many e-mail addresses on a server for different products Making sure that the beneficiary regularly checks his/her e-mail Installing a response system through automatic e-mail, known as “mailbot” or “mail reflector”, which will allow Internet users to rapidly and easily access the information about products and services Fig. no. 3 Steps in order to make e-mail advertising 3. Conclusions The advantage of instantaneous communication, from any distance, of the detailed offer and receiving an immediate answer makes Internet advertising one of the most modern and efficient tools of direct marketing. In Romania, we still do not have a real market of electronic sales because of the relatively reduced number of computer possessors and, especially, of Internet users. The costs of a publicity campaign in the Romanian virtual space varies between 1500 and 5000 $, which is much cheaper than classic advertising made through television and other media tools. 4
In comparison with other communication media previously mentioned, Internet advertising has a series of advantages and disadvantages: The advantages of Internet advertising
The disadvantages of Internet advertising it can be widely spread, it can become annoying if the persons it can be accessed when solicited by the who receive the message are not interested, interested person, it cannot be applied on an older or rural it has a dynamic character, audience, who, in certain areas, do not have it is less restrictive in comparison with access to Internet television advertising The role and importance of Internet advertising are also sustained by its characteristics, among which the most obvious are: public presentation – it is a medium of communication which addresses to the general public; persuasive force – it is a medium of communication which has a lot of influence and which allows the seller to repeat a message several times; increased expressivity – it allows a presentation of the enterprise made through a combination of sounds and images; real time comparison – it allows the buyer/consumer to receive and compare messages from different competitors, almost instantaneously; well targeted – because a certain site is visited by people with a determined profile, who have common traits; repeating the message – this can be done any time the solicitor wishes, with no additional costs; personalized character – in time, messages can match certain audience categories; it has no time and space limits. Bibliography: 1. J. Aitchinson, Inova ie în marketing, Editura Brandbuiders Grup, Bucure ti, 2006 2. I. Cetin , R. Brandabur, M. Constantinescu, Marketingul serviciilor – teorie i aplica ii, Ed. Uranus, Bucure ti, 2006. 3. R. Ergenzinger; J.P.Thommen, Marketing, Zurich, Switzerland, 2001. 4. O.C.Ferrel, D.M. Hartline, Marketing strategy, 4th Edition, Thomson South-Western Publishing House, 2008. 5. Ph.Kotler, G.Armstrong, Principiile marketingului, Edi ia a III-a, Editura Teora, 2004 6. Ph. Kotler, Managementul marketingului, Editura Teora, Bucure ti, 2007.
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While at the academic level the “Bologna-Process” was initiated where internationally study-courses are evaluated and credited to become part of globally accepted standards like the BA-degree, MA-or PhD-degree –in the sector of Vocational Training there is no system like that yet. At the level of vocational training there are uptil now in many countries only atomistic, not-harmonized structures. There is uptil now for example in the EU no full insight into: • What content is offered in the individual countries • If there is agreement within the social partners (employers/employees) if vocational training should be paid individually or by companies or by government • What do social partners expect from their national government in this respect • What could/should be promoted by EU-institutions • If national Round Tables could be linked to become an international network For the sector of retail/wholesale the EU initiated the project VS 2009/00532 to create awareness for those questions and to explore ways of networking to establish a sectorcouncil. Recipients of the EU-research-budget became together as project partners the employer’s Brussels-office EuroCommerce and the employee’s Brussels-trade union headquarter Uni Global. Scientific support came by the European Retail Academy. The Steering Committee formed by these three organizations decided • to run three “hearings” across the EU-territory ; one in Vienna for Central and Eastern Europe, one in Helsinki for Scandinavia and the Baltics and one in Athens for the countries of the Mediterranean. All three regional meetings had the same agenda – four blocks concerning the questions: -
What was the past and is the present task of Vocational Training? What are the future challenges of Vocational Training? What can be helped by national organizations? What can be helped by EU-institutions?
to send out questionnaires with more detailed questions to specify the subject additionally to stakeholders not being able to attend the meeting. As stakeholders are defined retailers, trade unions/government organizations and vocational training institutions (private and public ones). The ambition of the “Hearings” was: • gathering experiences of existing sectoral observatories, skills councils and similar bodies • optimizing skills and requested projects • looking for potential National Competence Centers to help implementing adequate training policies for the sector • gathering comparable data and methodologies for anticipating future management skills •
2. Quantitative and Qualitative Responses The share of returned questionnaires split into stakeholders categories are : • 57% retailers • 26% vocational training • 17% trade unions
Having as an absolute number 70 this can be interpreted only as case-study or a “test-trial”; because the absolute basis is too small for mathematic correlation – or regression analysis . The situation even worsens by check of the countries; out of 27 EU-countries • 4 did not reply at all • 12 did send in only 1 answer • 7 did send in more than 3 answers Nevertheless it is the first case-study with opinions of 70 experts of human resources in retail/wholesale. At this stage at least one can analyse what this panel has in common. 2.1. The present situation Having a scale of 1 (unimportant) to 5 (important) the biggest need for training was seen in the category for • the store (5) • the region (4) • the national level (5) • the international level (4) At the contemporary training the focus is at • market trends (5) • competition at store level (5) • new players/formats (4) As the focus for future training the ranking is • languages (4) • IT knowledge (5) • Social skills (5) • Intercultural skills (4) Of all factors in absolute numbers “social skills” got the highest number of points. This can be interpreted as • In retail/wholesale “social skills” are a profile for this sector • Or it might also be an indication that “success” is linked generally highly with “social skills” Those panellists dealing with the subject of Life-Long-Learning generally work together (within a special relationships) with universities or universities of applied sciences. But there seems nowhere to exist a national roll-out of a Life-Long-Learning scheme. Special activities for the following target-groups claim to have in absolute numbers: • career planning - 59 • young people - 54 • re-training - 50 • integration of immigrants - 32 • training for foreign markets - 29
2.2. Special Needs for SMEs As a special subject of the interrogation were the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Sent out as an open question “What special need is there for SME”? among the answers returned were results like “They need to have a good marketing plan” – which is a
surprise (!) for an expert hearing. In a Peer Review therefore firstly the returned answers were categorized into: a) not SME specific b) generally true for SME c) specifically mentioned for inside the country d) specifically mentioned in relation to foreign markets As not SME specific were identified: • having competitive production-/sales costs • knowledge of the market, competitors price • investment in research and development • multi-channel marketing • gaining information about foreign markets (products/distribution/laws) • need to have a good marketing plan Generally true for SME are the following problems: • increasing critical-mass to develop special offers to SME-Vocational Training • pooling resources with other SMEs • cross-company/-field cooperation of experts for training (laws/international trade issues) • cross-company vocational training • to be open to work and form mergers with companies from other countries • small units of modernized learning • e-learning solutions specifically tailored to SME-needs • tailor-made-on-the-job trainings • solving lack of time for Vocational Training • solving lack of money for Vocational Training • low barrier government • easier access to finances • intensive knowledge of supply-chain-management (not only having the focus on a product) • good relations to suppliers in terms of quantity delivered and pricing • permanent staff-and leadership-training • talent management, management, leadership • fixing staff to the company For the home-market of the SME the following points might get a special focus: • quick awareness for new trends • good IT-knowledge • broader competences of processes • customer-orientation, good counselling service • qualified employees, emphasis on craft: cook, butcher, baker, etc. • improvement of image • being with attractive Homepage in the internet • creating brand image For gaining market shares abroad the following points have to be strengthened according to the opinion of the experts:
• • • • • • • •
market-knowledge about foreign market skills to analyse foreign market-data knowledge of foreign trade (customs etc.) more product knowledge to sell to foreign market good internet-presentation languages intercultural knowledge social partnerships
2.3. Round Table content The next part of the questionnaire was dealing with the content of the experts during the last years and the expected topics. Defining the last “five innovative steps” there is a broad range of differentiation between new countries and the “old core” – EU. Activities mentioned are: • identification of need for qualification • defining job-descriptions • modernizing job-descriptions • responsibility for qualification development • institution building within the education sector • national data-base for all adult education programms • new methods of education • education audit • new technologies • information posters • creating potential supply of special skills and leadership • cross-company vocational training • free time for training and education • 20-30 minutes training during the day • Linking basic vocational training with life-long-learning • Internship in companies • Finance of scholarships • Increase of geographical mobility of learners/apprentices and teachers/trainees The gap between the “old EU” and the “newcomers” is also reflected concerning the new skill challenges in the future – but answers mirror also a conflict between social partners: • Early and better qualification of the employee by the employer • Decreasing stress at workplace • Additional training for first aid and job safety • Social management • More sustainable trainings • More trainings by independent companies • Training connected to the promotion-process • Open systems for life-long-learning • More involvement at the secondary school level • Shorten period between learning (at school/university) and doing (in the job)
• Tax incentives for scholarships and workers’ additional training • Keeping the interest of employees to stay within the company • E-learning/blended learning • National frame to define exactly the levels of vocational trainings • International frameworks for comparison and evaluation of national education offers Evaluating the present penetration of e-learning/blended learning in the Vocational Training more than 72 percent gave 3 points or less at the scale from 1 to 5. A big future demand can be derived from this result Very controversial is the answer to the question if there is within each country a national coordination for vocational training in retail/wholesale. Taken the answers from the panellists there are 38 claiming that there is a Round Table/Coordination – 32 do not see it. But even within the pro-fraction the panellists are sometimes divided about which institution is responsible! This view of controversy can be stressed also from the return of questionnaires by the basis of countries. Among those sending only 1 answer several ones claimed “to have/to be” the Round Table for retail education – but either they did not want or they simply could not organize a second or third questionnaire. Asked for advice who should be involved in national Round Tables for retail/wholesale the proposals range from: • Federal Education Ministries (some mention additionally the Economics Ministry) • Governmental special agencies • Trade Unions • Employers Associations (sometimes the specific merchants one) • Wish for Tripartite Round Table: government, employers, employees • Social partners and Vocational Training-providers • Human Resources-managers from multinational retail/wholesale companies • Chamber of Commerce/British Council • Universities /Universities of Applied Sciences • Consultants for PR To promote the sector-image generally to get enough human resources for retail is still not really developed – it is more seen as recruitment from the individual companies; but there are also encouraging examples in some countries. • Company information • Contact to schools • Internal and external personal marketing (cooperation with schools, PR, trade shows) • Fairs/exhibitions • Advertising/sponsoring • Corporate Social Responsibility/Best Practices • Web-Platforms for apprentices/Sweden: www.karriarihandeln.se • Supporting skills competitions/Estonia: competition between VOT-school-students • Awards for professional qualifications • Partnership between social partners to develop/maintain qualifications • Code of Ethics (Poland) • “Human Capital Management” (Netherlands) • Initiating specific bachelor programs at University Colleges
• Denmark: Retail Academy supported by EU Social Fund The answers to the question of “how to improve comparability” in general and to the question of potential “improvement by cooperation within the EU” are overlapping and put therefore into one list: • Description of competences • Creating more transparency of qualifications • Clearly defined targets of training • Creating an international data-base about educational programs • Linking also skills to knowledge • More research about Vocational Training-programs • Identifying and anticipating skill needs • Promoting awareness for best practical cases/training possibilities • Sector knowledge center/disseminating best practice • Agreement on qualification standards and quality standards (like EQF, EQARF) • Creating an evaluation council as an independent body • Clear definition/targeting for whom EU-comparability is needed • Certificates like EuroPass • Practices via mobility of learners and other groups • Pushing feedback from other countries/exchange experience • International sector coordination/supporting national systems to be transformed to EU-standard • Supporting web-pages available in various languages • Supporting to learn foreign languages • Supporting sustainable exchange of information and experience • Financial incentives/support While quite often there is agreement about the content mainly the Vienna-and the AthensHearings showed orientation conflicts between the Social Partners.
Society oriented
Powering the weak people learning linked to salaryimprovement public payment learning with free-access for all cross-company oriented skill/know-how for flexible life-longworking group-oriented career
Trade Unions
Employers Powering the strong people learning linked to productivity improvement by individuals/company payment company- / indoor-knowledge oriented work skill oriented individual career-oriented
Individualism oriented
Pic. 2 Orientation conflicts between the Social Partners
Employers tend to promote individuals who show certain strength – they are powered for leadership within the company with indoor-knowledge. Trade Unions tend to promote crosscompany knowledge paid by the public to improve the situation of weaker employees. A quote for the engagement for such fraction-groups came in Vienna by Dr. Dwora Stein: “Vocational Training has to be benchmarked if it helps women to improve their social conditions.” In all three Hearings the productivity improvement as a win - or the career-improvement in salary terms as a win was discussed; what was missed by the author of this paper was to see education per se as an improvement of the personality as an own value. Cynically as a conclusion it can be stated: “ If education has no monetary return on investment – then people (also from the educational level) seem to prefer to remain stupid!” Concerning the qualifications frameworks to be known/to work with – the absolute ranking is • EQF (European Qualifications Framework) - 32 • NQF (National Qualifications Framework) - 31 • ECVET (European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training) - 25 • EQARF (European Quality Assurance Reference Framework) - 17
3.0 Evaluation of the Survey In the end of 2010 this case-study gives room for some conclusions about the sector of Vocational Training for retail and wholesale in the EU. One of the main conclusions is that the case study has to be enlarged by building national Round Tables especially in the new EU-member states. Such an activity could improve the awareness for life-long-learning and for new education technologies. Based on the data collected uptill the end of 2010 the following 20 conclusions are drawn:
Conclusion 1: It was the first effort of the Social Dialogue to transform three regional conferences into “structured hearings” – not teaching what has to be done, but listening to those in business what they actually do
Conclusion 2: To use a questionnaire as a conference-structure and to send out that questionnaire to additional recipients enabled the first survey (even it is has only the character of a case-study/pre-study) of vocational training in this sector Conclusion 3: The “hearings”, the answers of the questionnaire, the final conference, the final report – plus interviews or this paper for an academic publication – have all created an “awareness-package”
Conclusion 4: Interculturally many stakeholders did meet for the first time at the hearings– it could be the beginning of a sustainable exchange of experience
Conclusion 5: The complexity of the sector became transparent; there is a view of the retailers, the trade unions, the administrations, the private or semi-private training institutions. But even within retail there are many different formats or organizational schemes which follow own rules.
Conclusion 6: A problem of complexity is also the national historic development between the former EU15 and today’s EU 27. Simplified in a chart some countries still work on the basic level while others deal with advanced problems.
High level Optimization of job descriptions sector Round Tables Newcomers The hard core 15 Basic training first job/process descriptions atomistic action Low level
Pic. 3 : Challenges of EU 15 versus newcomers Conclusion 7: As problems are still very different they could be solved perhaps better by accepting the principle of national or even regional subsidiarity – nevertheless including them into benchmarking of Vocational Training Conclusion 8: Already the present-data could be used by all stakeholders to benchmark the present situation and the views about the future skills, competences and organizations. Conclusion 9: To promote Life-Long-Learning the academic education and the vocational training have to be linked
Study-Level 8 (10)* points
Academic Level (European Retail Academy) t
Vocational Level European Competence Center Source: Prof. Dr. B.Hallier
*
Exception Ireland
Pic. 4 Life-Long-Learning
Conclusion 10: Life-Long-Learning will be promoted by the future education technology which goes the way from class-room, blended-learning to interactive learning via internet. Target of Future Education Technology Interactive learning via Internet with steady updates
Locally
A
Internationally Far-distance learning CD-Support
Source: Prof.Dr.B.Hallier
Pic. 5 Target of Future Education Technology
Conclusion 11: When already in 2010 the biggest communities of the world are China, India, Facebook and the USA – then the speed of social communities without national boundaries become obvious. Conclusion 12: The best retailers will learn from the best retailers worldwide – the best training programs will be loaded down worldwide. Conclusion 13: Only partly in future students will learn from professors – partly professors will learn from students – mainly students will learn from students Conclusions 14: Therefore also a potential Sector Council in 2020 will be more a Web 3 – online/Nano Generation: building communication together in life-time online instead of a prestigious meeting of some elected representatives speaking in a Building in Brussels for a whole sector. Conclusion 15: The bodies of virtual Sector Councils could be much more democratic, being enlarged within nano-seconds by experts helping in complex questions. Conclusion 16: Nevertheless within national schemes or for international cross-border exchanges an evaluation of programs like for the EuroPass is necessary. Conclusion 17: Therefore National Accreditation Boards have to evaluate vocational training in the same way like the Bologna-process enforced an evaluation and accreditation for the academic sector.
EuCVoT-Headquarter
Advisory Board Retail
National Accreditation Boards like
NL,
D,
PL, CZ
Advisory Board VocT Advisory Board Trade Unions Advisory Board Administrations
Certifiers
Pic. 6 Potential structure of an European Competence Center for Vocational Training for Retail/Wholesale Conclusion 18: The EU can help to push technology innovation in the education sector: this helps employees, employers, vocational training institutions - but also the competiveness macro-economically Conclusion 19: The EU should promote at the present time still conferences as only face-toface meetings will pave the way to trust in a future virtual community. Conclusion 20: The EU should promote an Annual Conference with an Award-Ceremony to get gain bigger media-awareness for the education sector
Léon F. WEGNEZ, the distinguished Member of the Editorial Board of our “Holistic Marketing Management” Journal, was awarded the prestigious title of Doctor Honoris Causa of the National School of Political Science and Public Administration (SNSPA), Bucharest. The award ceremony took place on February 15, 2013, at “Château Sainte-Anne”, Brussels, the headquarters of Diplomatic Club of Belgium. The prestigious National School of Political Science and Public Administration (SNSPA), Bucharest, has organized and conducted, in cooperation with the Diplomatic Club of Belgium, Brussels, a memorable Doctor Honoris Causa award ceremony. Before the award ceremony, His Excellency, Mr. Ambassador Daniel LEROY, the President of the Diplomatic Club of Belgium, delivered the welcome address (http://holisticmarketingmanagement.ro/the-honorable-leon-f-wegnez-wasawarded-the-prestigious-title-of-doctor-honoris-causa-of-the-national-school-of-politicalscience-and-public-administration-snspa-bucharest-romania/).
Discours du Professeur Léon F. WEGNEZ pour la cérémonie de Doctorat Honoris Causa de l’Ecole Nationale d’Etudes Politiques et Administratives Université d’Etat de Roumanie, à Bucarest
Monsieur le Recteur de l’Ecole Nationale d’Etudes Politiques et Administratives, Mesdames et Messieurs les Professeurs, Mesdames et Messieurs, Chers Etudiants,
Je suis très sensible à l’honneur qui m’est fait par votre Université et je suis particulièrement heureux de pouvoir partager avec vous quelques réflexions à l’occasion de cette cérémonie de Doctorat Honoris Causa de votre prestigieuse Ecole Nationale d’Etudes Politiques et Administratives, de Bucarest, très réputée Université d’Etat de Roumanie Je voudrais vous entretenir, brièvement, de trois questions qui, me semble-t-il, méritent une attention toute particulière dans le contexte économique et politique actuel. Ces trois questions nous interpellent, parce qu’elles s’inscrivent dans le cadre des profonds changements qui affectent notre vie en société, notre environnement de travail, nos relations humaines et les relations entre les Etats dont nous faisons partie. La première se rapporte à l’évolution fondamentale de la fonction de dirigeant.
La seconde à la profonde transformation de l’univers de la consommation, et en particulier des comportements des consommateurs, et aux réponses que doivent y apporter nos entreprises. La troisième, enfin, s’inscrit dans le contexte des relations entre les Etats et de l’avènement d’une diplomatie nouvelle.
Comment définir la fonction de dirigeant et sa nécessaire évolution ? Observons, tout d’abord, que l’autorité dont tout dirigeant doit jouir pour pouvoir exercer sa fonction de façon satisfaisante et performante, ne peut en aucun cas être confondue avec le pouvoir qu’il détient du fait de cette fonction. En effet, l’autorité, l’autorité véritable, est également faite d’acceptation de la part de ceux qui s’y plient. Il importe, dès lors, que le dirigeant possède une réelle aptitude à obtenir, sans devoir recourir à la contrainte, que les choses qui doivent être faites le soient effectivement.
Il ne peut donc y avoir aucune confusion entre le fait de diriger une entreprise, quelle qu’elle soit, qu’elle soit privée ou publique, et une attitude se traduisant par l’expression d’un comportement délibérément autoritaire et dominateur. Plus que jamais, l’exercice de l’autorité doit être une affaire de consensus. La véritable mission du dirigeant consiste, en effet, à mobiliser et à dynamiser les aptitudes de ses collaborateurs. C’est pourquoi, les dirigeants d’aujourd’hui sont appelés à concevoir leur fonction comme l’expression d’un devoir et non comme la manifestation d’un pouvoir. Et pour concrétiser cette réalité nouvelle, il leur faut réussir à établir un judicieux équilibre entre les impératifs multiples et variés de cette fonction très particulière, et leur propre personnalité. Cette démarche n’est pas toujours aisée, car la nature profonde de la personnalité des dirigeants est, bien évidemment, très diverse ; qu’ils soient autoritaires, démocratiques, rationnels, intuitifs, décideurs, circonspects, méthodiques, lunatiques, paternalistes ou même indifférents. Mais ce qui est essentiel, c’est que tous ces dirigeants, en dépit de leurs différences, portent en eux la volonté de prendre en compte, peut-être à des degrés divers, mais de façon authentique, le facteur humain, qui est une composante inéluctable de tout pouvoir que l’on détient sur des hommes ou des femmes dans notre société. C’est donc bien d’une nouvelle philosophie du travail qu’il s’agit et les dirigeants des temps modernes, quels qu’ils soient et quelle que soit la sphère professionnelle dans laquelle ils évoluent, n’ont d’autre choix que d’intégrer dans leur mentalité et dans leur gestion quotidienne, le respect de ceux et de celles sur lesquels ils exercent leur autorité, En outre, il leur incombe de contribuer à la valorisation de la vie professionnelle et de la vie privée, de tous ceux qui relèvent de leur autorité. Par ailleurs, nous devons retenir que l’image du dirigeant, telle qu’elle est perçue par les divers publics de l’entreprise qu’il dirige, doit susciter le respect et inspirer la confiance. Alors seulement, elle deviendra un authentique facteur de stabilité pour l’entreprise et l’ensemble de son personnel. Pour atteindre cet objectif, le dirigeant d’aujourd’hui doit trouver un juste équilibre entre la façon dont il commande et la façon dont il écoute, entre le respect des droits et l’imposition
des devoirs, entre les prérogatives respectives des divers échelons de la hiérarchie dans l’entreprise, entre les intérêts particuliers et les obligations réciproques des divers départements et services ; mais aussi, et ceci est fondamental, entre lui-même et chacun de ses collaborateurs et de ses collaboratrices, entre lui-même et sa famille, entre ses aspirations personnelles et les exigences de sa fonction. Alors seulement, le dirigeant remplira pleinement sa vocation, qui demeure, en tout état de cause, de gérer le présent pour assurer l’avenir.
Le deuxième thème qui retiendra notre attention est celui des nouveaux comportements des consommateurs, et de ce qu’impliquent leurs exigences nouvelles pour nos entreprises. Au cours des dernières années, les consommateurs ont changé de façon fondamentale. Ils s’interrogent, et ils nous interrogent, au sujet des nouveaux modes de consommation, des produits que nous mettons sur le marché et qu’ils veulent mieux connaître avant de les acquérir, des services nouveaux que nos entreprises leur proposent ; mais aussi, ils se posent des questions sur l’évolution de leurs dépenses de consommation et sur l’influence réelle, au quotidien, de leurs achats sur leur budget ; sans oublier un point devenu essentiel : la grande préoccupation qui est la leur en ce qui concerne leur santé et, en particulier, leurs exigences en matière de qualité de l’alimentation. Il nous faut les rassurer sur tous ces points. Ils attendent de nous que nous le fassions avec compétence et sincérité. Et, en réalité, cela est juste, car la raison d’être de nos entreprises est double, elle est à la fois d’ordre économique et d’ordre social. Tout cela étant, il nous faut, plus que jamais, être à l’écoute des consommateurs et apprendre à penser comme eux. Ce qui est important, c’est d’identifier la hiérarchie de leurs critères de choix des produits et des services que nous leur proposons. C’est d’analyser leurs critères de décision lors de la réalisation de leurs achats ; et un critère essentiel apparaît d’emblée : le niveau qualitatif de l’offre ; car la première impression du client potentiel en matière de qualité est souvent fondamentale et déterminante pour l’avenir de ses relations avec l’entreprise. Par ailleurs, innover sans cesse pour séduire les consommateurs est aussi, sans aucun doute, une stratégie gagnante ; mais, la commodité de la réalisation des achats apparaît de plus en plus comme la grande attente des consommateurs d’aujourd’hui. Elle implique, la simplicité et la clarté de l’offre, la garantie de la qualité et de la fiabilité des produits et des services, sans oublier la facilité d’accès et l’avantage offert par la rapidité de la réalisation des achats ; car ces consommateurs des temps modernes, dans leur souci de vivre mieux, sont aussi soucieux de la sauvegarde et de la valorisation de leurs temps libres. La course aux parts de marché, pour que nos entreprises survivent, est le défi que chaque dirigeant doit relever, jour après jour. Ce combat permanent ne tolère aucune faiblesse car, inéluctablement, l’évolution des marchés se fait au profit de certains et au détriment d’autres. N’oublions jamais que, chaque matin, lorsque le soleil se lève sur l’Afrique, le lion s’éveille et sait qu’il devra courir pour attraper une antilope et survivre ; et, n’oublions jamais que chaque matin, lorsque le soleil se lève sur l’Afrique, l’antilope s’éveille et sait qu’elle devra courir pour échapper au lion et survivre. La loi de la jungle est sans merci. La loi du marché l’est aussi.
Enfin, je voudrais vous dire quelques mots concernant la diplomatie, à laquelle, je le sais, un intérêt tout particulier est porté dans le cadre de certains travaux de votre Université. Vous n’ignorez pas qu’à ses débuts, pour autant qu’on puisse parler à ce propos des débuts de la diplomatie, l’envoi de ce qu’on pourrait appeler des « informateurs » dans les pays étrangers, s’inscrivait surtout dans un contexte de méfiance, de suspicion, de surveillance, et même, en quelque sorte, d’une sorte d’espionnage déguisé. Les pharaons d’Egypte, les empereurs romains, tous les souverains qui régnèrent au cours des siècles, s’efforcèrent de mieux connaître les forces et les faiblesses des autres Etats, dont ils se méfiaient. Les informateurs qu’ils y envoyaient n’étaient pas des diplomates. Ils n’avaient aucune fonction de représentation officielle, aucun mandat pour engager des discussions ou des négociations, et en réalité, aucun statut et aucune protection. Cependant, il est vrai que cette vocation qui était la leur d’observer et de faire rapport, annonçait l’avènement futur du métier nouveau de diplomate. Quant à la diplomatie des temps nouveaux, elle a, en réalité, pour mission, de mettre tout en œuvre pour empêcher la survenance de conflits entre les Etats, et cela, dans le respect des intérêts fondamentaux et respectifs de ces Etats. Il s’agit bien, en effet, de faire de la recherche de la paix, l’objet d’une démarche nouvelle fondée sur l’art de la négociation mais une négociation encadrée par des principes rigoureux clairement définis et admis par tous. La priorité donnée désormais à l’art de la recherche de la paix, au détriment de la maîtrise de l’art de la guerre, conduira ainsi à renoncer à la fâcheuse tendance qu’avaient les Etats, de faire la guerre pour préparer la paix, de privilégier les combats avant d’engager des négociations pour aplanir les désaccords survenant entre eux. Ceci est essentiel et signifie que l’avènement de la diplomatie moderne a constitué une étape fondamentale au niveau des relations internationales et s’est révélé comme un facteur de stabilité considérable au niveau du monde ; mais, malheureusement, sans pouvoir toujours protéger totalement le monde et les Etats, des grandes crises économiques, financières et sociétales qu’ils doivent affronter. On observera, par ailleurs, que la globalisation de l’économie et la mondialisation des échanges donnent aux relations internationales une dimension nouvelle, qui entraîne la diplomatie dans une évolution complexe et totalement novatrice. En effet, la diplomatie d’aujourd’hui est amenée, de plus en plus, à passer des négociations bilatérales classiques entre deux Etats, à des démarches multilatérales impliquant simultanément la défense des intérêts de plusieurs Etats. C’est ainsi que la diplomatie est engagée, toujours davantage, par exemple, dans la lutte commune d’un grand nombre d’Etats contre la faim dans le monde, dans la recherche de solutions au grand problème de l’eau au niveau de la planète, dans la complexité des choix à faire dans le domaine des sources d’énergie, dans le traitement des divers dangers inhérents aux changements climatiques, sans oublier les problèmes difficiles qui résultent des migrations des populations, les trafics d’armes et de drogue, et le terrorisme toujours plus violent dans plusieurs parties du monde. C’est dans ce contexte général, fait à la fois d’inquiétudes légitimes et d’espoir en un monde meilleur, que les diplomates d’aujourd’hui inscrivent désormais leur action et engagent, parfois avec grande abnégation, toute leur existence et toutes leurs qualités qui font la réputation du corps diplomatique moderne.
C’est aussi, dans ce contexte, que je me réjouis tout particulièrement de l’excellence des relations et de la coopération existant entre la Roumanie et la Belgique, au sein de l’Union européenne ; et je vois, Monsieur le Recteur, Mesdames et Messieurs les Professeurs, Mesdames et Messieurs, Chers Etudiants, dans le lien privilégié établi aujourd’hui avec votre Ecole Nationale d’Etudes Politiques et Administratives, dont je suis heureux et fier de rejoindre la Communauté, une raison supplémentaire de développer, à l’avenir, notre réflexion commune sur les grands problèmes de notre société.
Je vous remercie.
The distinguished Rector ad-interim of the prestigious National School of Political Science and Public Administration (SNSPA), Bucharest, Professor Alina BĂRGĂOANU, PhD allowed us to present the Laudatio read on the occasion of the award ceremony that took place on February 15, 2013, at “Château Sainte-Anne”, Brussels, the headquarters of Diplomatic Club of Belgium.
LAUDATIO en l’honneur du Professeur Léon F. WEGNEZ à l'occasion de la cérémonie de remise du Titre de Docteur Honoris Causa de l’École Nationale d’Études Politiques et Administratives de Bucarest, Roumanie Vendredi, 15 Février, 2013 Château Sainte-Anne, Bruxelles
Monsieur l’Ambassadeur Daniel LEROY, Président du Club Diplomatique de Belgique Monsieur le Ministre Remus PRICOPIE, Ministre de l'Éducation Nationale, Roumanie Monsieur le Président Petru FILIP, Président de la Commission pour la Politique étrangère, Sénat, Parlement Roumain, Distingués Administrateurs et Représentants du Club Diplomatique de Belgique, Chers Collègues, Mesdames, Messieurs, C’est un grand plaisir d’introduire au titre du Doctorat Honoris Causa de l’École Nationale d’Études Politiques et Administratives de Bucarest, Roumanie, le Professeur Léon F. WEGNEZ, dont la formation universitaire multidisciplinaire l'a conduit notamment à enseigner des matières aussi différentes que la gestion d'entreprise, les langues germaniques, l'informatique et la robotique, l'industrialisation des pays en voie de développement, le droit civil et le droit commercial. Dans le cadre de sa carrière académique, Professeur Léon F. WEGNEZ a notamment contribué à la formation post-universitaire de nombreux diplômés des pays en voie de développement. Professeur Léon F. WEGNEZ a publié une vingtaine de livres, notamment, au plan scientifique, dans les domaines de l'informatique (le premier à écrire un livre sur l’informatique en langue française en Belgique), de la robotique et de l'intelligence artificielle; au plan économique, dans les domaines de la construction européenne, de la vision japonaise de la gestion d'entreprise, du consumérisme et des problèmes de sécurité; au plan diplomatique, dans les domaines de la formation à la diplomatie, des règles qui régissent les relations diplomatiques 1" "
et de l'avènement de la diplomatie moderne – Bruxelles étant la plus grande place mondiale de la diplomatie (plus de 200 ambassadeurs et 50 000 personnes rattachées à la diplomatie). Parmi les nombreux ouvrages, Professeur Léon F. WEGNEZ a publié “La nouvelle Europe” et “Le miracle japonais”, qui ont été classes par les critiques parmis les meilleures livres consacrés respectivement à l’Europe et au Japon et a été co-auteur du “Dictionnaire commercial”, édité par l’Académie Française des Sciences Commerciales et du “Dictionnaire analytique de la distribution”, édité par l’Université de Montréal, Canada. Professeur Léon F. WEGNEZ a publié plus de 2.100 articles traitant de ces disciplines, dans des revues belges et étrangères, et a été élu à l'Académie Française des Sciences Commerciales en 1988. Professeur Léon F. WEGNEZ est Conseiller scientifique auprès d'Universités au Canada, en Belgique et en Roumanie, ou par exemple a organisé en coopération avec le Comité Roumain de la Distribution le 24ème Congrès International de l’AIDA Bruxelles (association scientifique et pédagogique) en Mai 1998. Il est important de nous rappeler quelques-unes des personnalités participantes au Congrès AIDA: Riccardo Garosci, Viceprésident de la Commission économique et monétaire du Parlement Européen et Rapporteur Européen pour le Livre vert du Commerce Européen, Georges Chétochine, Professeur à l'Université Paris IX-Dauphine, Jean-Jacques Vandenheede, Vice-président AC Nielsen, Claude Sordet, Membre de l'Académie Française des Sciences Commerciales, Louis Guelette, Viceprésident IBM, Bernd Hallier, Directeur EuroHandelsInstitut, Pierre Arnold, Docteur Honoris Causa de l'Université de Lausanne, Olivier Geradon de Vera, Directeur IRI SECODIP, Paul Schulz, Vice-président Food Distributors International USA, Lucien Van Boxstael, Président du Comité Royal Belge de la Distribution et Directeur Général au Ministère des Affaires économiques et beaucop d’autres. La coopération du 18 Mai 1998 avec les Comissions du Parlement Roumain pour l’Intégration Européenne et pour la Politique Economique a été une expérience mémorable concernant la promotion de la marque nationale. Permettez-nous encore de mentioner la carrière du Professeur Léon F. WEGNEZ dans des organismes belges et internationaux d'étude et de formation, pour lesquels il a notamment organisé de nombreux congrès internationaux et conduit de nombreuses missions d'étude sur les cinq continents. Il a participé à la direction d'une maison d'édition et de librairies, et a occupé et occupe encore plusieurs mandats d'expert dans le domaine de la distribution, du marketing, de la franchise et de la sécurité d'entreprise, en étant amené à travailler étroitement avec de nombreuses instances publiques et privées. Ses fonctions, dans le cadre du Comité Royal Belge de la Distribution ou de l’AIDA et Urbanicom, dans le cadre de Prévention et Sécurité, dans le cadre du Club Diplomatique ou au niveau de la rédaction d'articles et d'ouvrages, prennent beaucoup de temps et implique une disponibilité permanente, en étant un interlocuteur privilégié des hautes instances (Administrateur Secrétaire Général du Club Diplomatique de Belgique, CoFondateur et Membre du Comité de rédaction de la Gazette Diplomatique, Administrateur Directeur Général du Comité Royal Belge de la Distribution, Administrateur Secrétaire Général de l’Association internationale de la distribution, Administrateur Directeur Général de l’Association internationale Urbanisme et Commerce, Administrateur Directeur de Prévention et Sécurité, Directeur Général des revues Distribution d’Aujourd’hui et Distributie Vandaag). Monsieur Léon F. WEGNEZ a reçu des importants distinctions honorifiques belges conférées par S.M. le Roi des Belges, sur proposition du Ministre des Affaires économiques: Officier de l’Ordre de Léopold (2012), Officier de l’Ordre de la Couronne (2002), Chevalier de 2" "
l’Ordre de Léopold (1991), Chevalier de l’Ordre de la Couronne (1980). Il a aussi reçu une distinction honorifique étrangère: Chevalier de l’Ordre des Saints Maurice et Lazare conférée par la Maison Royale de Savoie. Monsieur Léon F. WEGNEZ a exprimé constamment sa satisfaction concernant le rôle croissant joué par la Roumanie dans la construction européenne, en considérant toujours que l'élite de la Roumanie est un modèle dans bien des domains et en se félicitant des relations amicales qu’il a pu développer au cours des années avec de grands dirigeants, des recteurs et des professeurs éminents. Léon F. WEGNEZ a commencé de rêver et d’avoir des idées, d’enfoncer les racines des idées et de loger l’inspiration dans la ville de Verviers, l’ancienne cité lainière reconnue mondialement pour ses innovations technologiques dans l’industrie de la laine et, de nos jours, capitale wallonne de l’eau, une ville qui a eu toujours une vie culturelle intense. On peut afirmer que dans son cas il s’agit d’une reminiscence de Verviers, en travaillant et en faisant un effort constant d'apprendre dans son voyage en cherchant, pour paraphraser Marcel Proust, d’avoir de nouveaux yeux et à réussir d’apporter sa contribution croissante au développent de l’économie, du social, de la santé, de la culture, de la paix. Léon F. WEGNEZ a eu la chance de pouvoir constater directement les spécificités de l’enseignement supérieur - en relation avec les autres types et niveaux d'enseignement, aussi bien qu’avec de nouveaux partenaires et de nouvelles formes de coopération - et par conséquence le fait que l’analyse du processus nécessite que des outils conceptuels et théoriques soient taillés à sa mesure, par rapport à la hauteur de l'apprentissage tout au long de la vie, en batissant un ensemble cohérent. Il s'agit du role de la diplomatie de saisir la mise du rapport entre l'enseignement supérieur et le développement durable, de renégocier les relations d’aborder la creation et le partage de la connaissance, d'où la nécessité du dialogue diplomatique constant et pertinent dans le cadre d’un nouvel espace d'apprentissage sur l'éducation et la viabilité en reposant sur la coopération sur la base de l’intérêt et le besoin communs. Aujourd’hui nous sommes sous la pression de produire de nouvelles connaissances, dans le climat actuel d'incertitude économique étant un besoin réel de coopérer dans la gestion des connaissances comme un catalyseur pour le changement des processus d'affaires - comme s'est le cas de l’heureuse coopération dans le cadre du Congrès SANABUNA 2012 Europe Centrale et du Sud-Est, Falticeni, Suceava, Roumanie - en assurant l'intégration de la connaissance implicite et explicite, en gardant ces connaissances disponibles et à jour, en mettant l'accent sur l'apprentissage organisationnel. C'est pourquoi nous sommes heureux de remettre les signes spécifiques de l'appréciation de notre l’École Nationale d’Études Politiques et Administratives de Bucarest, Roumanie et de remettre la diplôme de Docteur Honoris Causa au Monsieur Léon F. WEGNEZ.
Alina BĂRGĂOANU, Recteur intérimaire de l’École Nationale d’Études Politiques et Administratives de Bucarest, Roumanie" 3" "