If the world and the society in which we have lived can be characterized by something, it is by change. Everything around us changes, at breakneck speed, and what seemed impossible to our grandparents has become an everyday thing for us.
Without going any further, could we imagine a world without mobile phones? And yet, 3 years ago, this device was a privilege of a few, 5 years ago an invention that we saw in American movies and 10 ago it was little less than science fiction. We could say the same about video, the computer, the Internet, and so many things that have entered our lives in recent years and have become essential.
The business world, obviously, has not been alien to this "new society", and is immersed in a process of continuous, dizzying transformation, at all levels: strategic, structural, technological, educational…
In one way or another, almost all of us have experienced these changes: new activities, new methods, new techniques, new ways of managing… in short, change, change and more change. Change caused (we could even say demanded) by our environment and that has led us to a dynamic that, in our opinion, far from stopping, will only increase. For this reason, any organization that wants to survive must prepare to face this new situation, since "the rules of the game have changed." For this, it is necessary to enhance and make the most of your assets.
What are the assets of a company? If we asked any traditional economist, he would look at the balance sheet of the company and indicate the value of the buildings, facilities, social capital… In short, tangible, tangible assets.
Elements all of them based on a single factor: financial or economic. However, these elements no longer represent a competitive advantage for companies.
The days when a company's dominant position in the market was based on its size are long gone. Suffice it to recall the serious difficulties that most of the large industrial holding companies have gone through, the crises in the automobile sector or the example of the computer giant, IBM, and the serious hardships it suffered in the late 1980s and was about to signify their demise.
Where then does this advantage lie? In the technology? Neither. While technological innovation is essential for survival, it is no less true that such technology is increasingly available to everyone and is easily "copied". In fact, entire countries such as Korea or Singapore have based their national growth strategy on the transfer and imitation of technology developed in other countries (mainly Japan)… and they are not doing so badly. Therefore, we are not faced with a competitive advantage but rather with a "disadvantage": whoever does not have this technology will perish, but whoever does have it will not enjoy an advantageous position over others.
If neither physical assets nor technology are, then, the basis of an organization's competitive advantage, it must be found in other "assets": which ones? It is before this question that the idea reflected in the title of this article arises: people as the main asset.
The value of an organization no longer resides in its tangible assets, but in the technical and specialized knowledge of its staff, in their experience, in intellectual property, customer loyalty,… in short, in what has been achieved call Intellectual Capital or Knowledge. Let's take an example.
Let's think about some of the traditional monopolies of public services (telephone, electricity, water…) that have existed in our country for many years. No one doubts that the companies that exercised this monopoly, once it was completed, are, within their sector and at the national and even international level, among the most advanced from a technological point of view. And the financial solidity that their structures currently enjoy in most cases is also beyond doubt. However, once they enter into direct competition with other companies in the sector, there is no doubt that their technology will sooner or later be imitated or bought by their competitors. However, their experience (both of their staff and corporate) in matters such as knowledge of the sector,The use of the techniques or the treatment of our clients could not, in any case, be imitated or copied by other companies, except in the case of a “flight” of personnel (which leads us to another very interesting and increasingly important field, what is the "loyalty" of said staff). It is part of your "corporate memory." That would be (IS) your competitive advantage.
Faced with this new framework of action, the company that takes advantage of the knowledge and capacities of its personnel, that develops their learning capacity, that encourages constant innovation and the creation of new knowledge and that supports its growth in these factors will be in a position to face future challenges.
