More and more institutions and public and private companies around the world are involving the "project" as a basic unit of analysis of the management routine and an irreplaceable tool in strategic planning. We want to provide some useful reflections on the importance of projects as a tool that must evolve in the decision-making process both at the state level and within the framework of private companies.
Without wanting to delve into the very reiterated and always timely controversy around the globalization model, which corresponds to a reality of which no nation can be alien, which means that the momentum of this movement is of such magnitude that there is no locality, sidewalk or area of universal geography that can escape its influence. The most autochthonous products of the most remote region of the world are influenced by the competition of similar produced by antipodes on the other side of the world, even the most unique handicrafts have to compete in markets that were formerly captive. This is globalization, the crudest expression of competition, where only the one that guarantees the best offers in quality and price survives.
For this reason, the businesses that will characterize the new millennium will have no other weapon than competitiveness - based on information and knowledge - within and outside national borders, hence the importance of defining a much broader reference around to decisions to allocate resources and build a company. Perhaps the expression "global village" will take on new vigor by revealing and relieving concern about domestic and local needs and opportunities, while calling for attention from broader and more rigorous reflection on the importance, advantages and dangers of new demands in international markets.
World geopolitics has an unprecedented reconfiguration when designing and appropriating supranational integration processes, forcing the homogeneity of policies, procedures and operating rules of economic conglomerates. Its results are the emergence of new and broader stages where global strategies are implemented that seduce and captivate important groups of the world population.
Therefore, it is necessary to promote a vigorous and sustained export vocation, assigning it an important place in the development strategy. In fact, the paradigms of the “new economy” and the necessary international vision of the decisions that are made in the midst of the increasingly competitive and uncertain uncertainty of globalization, undoubtedly determine a new way of thinking and to manage projects.
For this reason we believe that the teaching and dissemination of the technique known as « Project Management»It must broaden its schemes in order to offer a more complete vision of the panorama in which the project will be inserted, and the analyst must provide himself with more information on the occurrences and uses of technologies; on administrative and organizational models that favor alliances between interested agents; on financial structuring (for which the origin of the resources is not important but the conditions offered in the international capital markets); the penetration and knowledge of the behavior of national and international markets for different kinds of products and services; and finally, the legislation of each country, respect for its rules and good treatment of the environment and ethical practices, on the one hand, and on the other,the accompaniment to deterministic models with the incorporation of random or stochastic reflection that relates a huge number of variables that move in changing and elusive scenarios.
This induces to highlight the importance of teamwork between different professionals specialized in different areas that add efforts and synergies, to identify, formulate, evaluate, negotiate and manage projects and proposals that can be guarantors of lucky decisions.
Hence the importance that each country, each region, each department or province, each locality, each company, each citizen discover their vocation and generate competitive strengths around that knowledge. There is no doubt that the competitiveness of the productive sectors, efficiency in government services with the accompaniment of a thoughtful academy, tolerant of different aspects of knowledge and producer and reproducer of promising ideas, are the key to achieving growth rates. economically adequate and the best option to improve the living conditions of the population.
The traditional protection policies that national companies enjoyed for so long are being dismantled, giving way to the modernization and reconversion of the productive apparatus, in order to prepare themselves as the only option for international competition, not only in foreign markets but also in the domestic.
However, taking advantage of the comparative advantages of other times, such as cheap labor, abundance and proximity to natural resources, economies of scale oriented to captive national markets, is in no way sufficient for the growth and permanence of our companies - public and private -; since innovation, quality, mastery of knowledge and its technological application are fundamental and necessary recipes to guarantee competitiveness; in fact, incorporating the creation of added value through all the links of the productive chain, from planning, design, production, transportation, to consumption itself, is undoubtedly the only way to act in the new scenario.
But the efforts must be shared by the State through the promotion of innovation and quality policies, which allow entrepreneurs to have some advantages that their competitors enjoy in their countries of origin, we know that subsidies, for example, are they apply not only to the final product but to the factors of production, mainly technology, as a valid strategy of the industrialized nations.
Consequently, new business thinking should be aimed at identifying the advantages that most vigorously reinforce its competitive strategy, and of course designing and financing plans for its appropriation and development, through adequate "business management" that allows access to the scientific principles underlying its application, with the permanent aim of contributing innovations to the knowledge base, aimed at improving quality and productivity, lowering costs, and, of course, better satisfying the customer.
Currents of thought such as Social Democracy, the controversial Neoliberalism or the novel Third Way agree on the need for a creative, innovative business sector that generates employment, conquers markets, contributes its technical, administrative and financial capacity in the construction of infrastructure through participation or concession mechanisms, and that contributes to development along the path of taxes.
Strategies to promote business development, such as business incubators, venture capital funds, credit, seed capital contributions, production chains and other useful mechanisms, must necessarily be accompanied by quality education and training geared towards Entrepreneurial and creative talent, their spirit of work and ethical conduct that allows them through preinvestment studies to support their business plans and realize dreams and aspirations, through the successful execution of projects and materialize them in successful companies.
The need therefore arises to rethink the University and change the methodological and pedagogical schemes for those that guarantee an adequate immersion of the student in the world of the future. The pedagogical models of teacher, board, supported by anachronistic books and texts, and passive students who receive information and unreal magic formulas have to be overcome by reflection, analysis, controversy, dynamics, active participation and the design of proposals. that are channeled through the identification, formulation, evaluation, negotiation and management of investment and development projects, guarantors of the creation of new successful companies.
The modern conception of the economy places human resources at the center of value formation, in another time value was created with goods, products, machinery and supplies, today and in the future, value comes mainly from knowledge, from the intellectual level, of creative ideas, of innovation, of information and, obviously, of management skills. It is clear then, that what determines the difference between wealth and poverty is simply "education".
This, then, education constitutes the most important and perhaps the only valid tool to improve the distribution of wealth and opportunities, which allows reducing tensions and conflicts between social classes, proscribing exclusion. It is that without good entrepreneurs - public and private - growth is not viable, it is not possible to advance in the search for social equity. The human quality and the ethical and technical training of the public and private entrepreneur have a lot to do with the quality of education and training provided by the universities and therefore with the development of the country and its regions.
On the other hand, we can add that the project management technique, in addition to auscultating the convenience of accessing a new investment front, also the consolidated companies can, through this tool, observe their future possibilities and capabilities and consequently dimension their " value ”, which will allow them to promote bridges, strategic alliances with consumers, suppliers and even with competitors.
The previous reflections made by each of these agents are preceded by rigorous and lengthy studies that are usually carried out through the intelligent expedient of observing and isolating the situation and studying it as if it were an independent project. There is a very advanced trend, we reiterate, in public and private business diligence around the world to turn the project into the basic unit of analysis.
Knowing how political changes are taking place in the vast majority of countries and how the decentralization process is becoming increasingly important fuels the desire of local communities to forge their own future. Faced with popular demands for greater self-determination, the world's national governments feel pressured to delegate power to the regional level and to the cities, allowing and promoting the exercise of their own autonomy.
Several successful experiences guarantee the goodness of the process, the delegation of power at the departmental and local levels can result in a more sensitive and efficient government. For example, in some Latin American countries, public services such as education, health care, road infrastructure, and the supply of drinking water and sanitation have been left to sub-national governments.
Indeed, the need arises for governors and mayors to lead the planning and management process and become the true managers of their jurisdiction, appropriately using strategic planning and »project management» tools that allow them to consolidate goals of development and social welfare. Public and private institutions, from the different territorial levels, regional universities are expected in their different training, specialization, updating, continuing education, distance or virtual programs; Unions, professional associations, make efforts to promote "institutional strengthening" programs to underpin the so-called "project culture".
National, departmental and municipal entities, and community and citizen participation organizations, can be associated with business diligence to contribute to the productive promotion of their regions, exploring the comparative and competitive advantages and the potential of their resources, channeling experiences, applying appropriate technologies and financial resources, searching for marketing opportunities and sharing training processes.
But all this requires organization and promotion, and in particular the imaginative design of institutional mechanisms that allow territorial entities to have a list of proposals or projects that compromise efforts and public and private action. The territorial entities must identify productive opportunities and take the first steps towards the establishment of alliances that contribute to their growth, through the cooperation and coordination of civic and institutional efforts for the promotion of joint ventures and solidarity economy, and the direct management of national and international resources through credit participation or foreign capital investment, or international cooperation. Increasingly importantthe project as a tool to manage resources and attract potential investors, public or private, national or international. "Without a project, there are no resources" is a colloquial expression that is becoming more effective every day.
It is expected, then, to launch institutional and financial promotion mechanisms, aimed at identifying viable investment opportunities, taking advantage of their economic and cultural vocation (agricultural, agro-industrial, artisanal, tourist, etc.). Cities must promote their own strategic agents, capable of exerting influence in the country and accessing the international scene directly to promote their businesses, products and projects on their own. In a word, it is expected that localities will become increasingly competitive in order to advance safely on the path of development.
The most important thing, then, is to transcend the traditional concepts of economic growth and make men and women, their opportunities, health, well-being, education and inclusion the protagonists and front-line participants in development options in the new millennium.
Perhaps the " project manager " is the professional who most adds value to the economy. Indeed, when you discover a good idea, elaborate it, size it and value it, you have information and elements of judgment that allow you to recommend or make a considered decision. If this leads to not executing the project, value is created by avoiding investments and costs in an action that did not provide guarantees of success. If the decision is to execute the project, value is created by later having a new installed capacity available for the operation.
To the extent of its operation, it ensures value for the owners and, obviously, for the community by receiving a good or service that they previously did not have. The lessons learned and the best practices derived from the ex post evaluation also correspond to an added value that the society will receive through future projects. As we can see in the different stages of the project cycle, value is generated and assured permanently. That is why we affirm that the project is the most suitable mechanism for generating and assuring value.
There are many productive projects, food security, social investment and infrastructure, commercialization of agricultural products, public services, resettlement of communities displaced by the intolerance of the dark forces born in the absence of the State, etc. that are needed to decrease unemployment and insecurity rates and to generate demand capacity and boost the growth of the economy in terms of efficiency and equity. For this reason, we are sure that this document will provide a useful and ideal tool for training “project managers” and business entrepreneurs, with local sensitivity and a global vision, who mobilize resources and wills, facilitating a better allocation of resources to the service of development and well-being.
Our intention in this proposal is that in accordance with the new action scenarios of the local, national and international economy and of the social forces, we assisted in the training of the "project managers" that our Latin American countries need, which as modern alchemists they can turn dreams and productive ideas into forceful realities at the service of our communities.
From this academic rostrum I suggest that regional and local rulers grant a few sabbatical months to the officials who will occupy the planning direction, so that they can tour their territory, learn about the problems and opportunities in their region, and not replicate the vices of the model. remote planning centralist with such precarious results.
Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, for example, thanks to the political will of its latest rulers and the promotion of citizen culture, has undertaken major projects for mass mobilization, road infrastructure, financial services, health, education, culture, hotels, of recreation that makes it more friendly and competitive every day.
