Handelsblatt Managing Corona Webinar
YOU CAN‘T GO AGAINST THE SEA
mit Jochen Werne
Fr. 3 April – 16.30
Register for free at https://veranstaltungen.handelsblatt.com/managing-corona/content-piece/you-cant-go-against-the-sea/
Heading to the sea –
Planung trifft Realität
What to do when the storm hit you –
Vom Lock-down zum Lock-On
Finding new routes
Die neue Realität in einer Welt beschleunigter Transformation
It is a great pleasure giving a keynote at the WIWO Digital Suite 2020 and to discuss the topic „Back to the roots. How technological progress and artificial intelligence is influencing international affairs and business today.“ with Germany‘s leading CFO‘s.
The length of stay of market-leading companies in the DAX, NASDAQ and other leading indices is decreasing rapidly. The planning cycles in companies and for CFOs are becoming shorter and shorter and the planning uncertainty with regard to the effects of international tensions on exports is increasing. The keynote will provide information on the relationship between the phenomenon of exponential technology leaps and the resulting innovations in the field of artificial intelligence and its impact on the geopolitical situation and international cooperation in general, and customer behavior and communication in particular.
A successful digitization strategy can only be implemented with and by the CFO. CFOs are drivers of change in the company and at the same time have to change themselves and the finance function.
This is a balancing act in which the prioritization of digitization projects in particular becomes a challenge in day-to-day business and again increasing cost pressure.
With the CFO Digital Suite, WirtschaftsWoche offers a creative space for your own assessment and inspiration.
Where do other CFOs stand with their digitization roadmap? The data driven company – process mining in practical test Restructuring and cost management vs. future projects – mastering the balancing act
Upskilling – wish or reality?
GOST‘s adventurous 2020 expedition BLACK SEA DRAGON (www.BlackSeaDragon.com) will depart on June 27 from the famous Bulgarian Black Sea harbour and home of the country’s Naval Academy, Varna.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS: By combining TRADITION and FUTURE in today’s hyper-connected world, the initiators of the expedition will bring together people and sailors from around the world to commemorate peacefully not only the great seafarers and explorers of all times – who were the first to unite our nations and people around the globe – but also to raise awareness and sensitise civil society to the importance of our MARITIME ECOSOCYSTEM with regard to the UNITED NATIONS SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS. Together with all partners, new relations will be created between sailors, states and academic officials in support of international understanding and peaceful relations.
COMMEMORATION: In international waters the expedition yacht crews will remember the Black Sea sailors of all nations who lost their lives while being on duty with a wreath laying commemoration ceremony on sea.
CHALLENGE: In just one leg the yachts will challenge each other from their home base to the Northern entrance of the Bosphorus. There the yachts will unite to pass the strait southwards to their Marmara Sea destination, the famous Mega Yacht Marina Ataköy near Turkey‘s biggest city Istanbul.
“It‘s a great privilege commanding the flag ship of Expedition „BLACK SEA DRAGON“ during this offshore challenge through the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea and hence crossing twice one of the planet’s most challenging waterways: the Bosphorus. While in Greek mythology Jason and his team of Argonauts challenged clashing rocks in the strait, the dedicated international sailors of the Global Offshore Sailing Team will be challenged by today‘s busy ships traffic, the famous powerful 4 to 6kn current and strong funnelling wind effects.”
“Expedition BLACK SEA DRAGON will mark another milestone in the history of the Global Offshore Sailing Team. After missions on nearly all oceans of this planet, the Black Sea is an outstanding challenge for 2020. Fostering international relations in this historically rich region will be a great pleasure.”
Those who put the customer at the heart of their data strategy, will be those who come out on top. With the increasing focus on customer experience, engagement and targeting, how can we continue to commercialise data and drive revenue with the customer in mind? And if we take a step back, are we truly making a positive social impact with our data?
Looking forward discussing about the question, if we can drive revenue whilst creating positive social impact at the Big Data & AI World in London
A plea from Johannes Winter & Jochen Werne
1st published in the German newspaper Handelsblatt on January 8, 2020 – translated by DeepL.com. Photos: Pixabay
Looking at the world sometimes gives the impression that things seem to be much better outside Europe. Examples? The world’s largest airport, Beijing-Daxing, goes into operation after four years of construction, while at BER, construction continues after 13 years. The coffee house chain Luckin Coffee, valued at $4.5 billion, will replace Starbucks as No. 1 in the Chinese market by the end of the year, two years after its foundation. Digital platform companies such as Apple, Amazon, Alphabet, Tencent & Co. have left the traditional commodity and industrial groups behind in terms of value.
What made these American and Asian companies so big? Absolute willingness to implement at high speed, massive state and private investments, sometimes industrial policy intervention, huge, scalable domestic markets and a just-do-it mentality favour economic and technological development alongside a number of other factors.
Is Europe, on the other hand, in a downward spiral? Is the continent now losing the much-discussed second half of digitisation, which is mainly about the digitisation of industry, now that the B2C race seems to be lost?
The recent history can also be told in a different way. The financial crisis of 2008/2009 has shown how valuable Europe’s and especially Germany’s strong industrial core is. A highly specialised, excellent SME sector and the leading groups from mechanical, plant and vehicle engineering to the pharmaceutical and chemical industries are anchors of stability. With Industry 4.0, the vision for the future of value creation comes from Germany, and there is a worldwide competition for its widespread introduction.
The strength lies in product innovation, especially in complex products such as machine tools, medical devices, vehicles or building services engineering. Germany also has world market leaders in engineering and in production and automation technology. Despite all the negative predictions, Germany has further expanded its strength in networked physical platforms with the integration of IoT, data and services in industrial environments and has secured a very good starting position. The German research landscape also holds an internationally good position in areas critical to success such as semantic technologies, machine learning and the digital modelling of products and users. And let’s not forget that the companies in the country have produced outstanding software products for the fast, reliable and scalable processing of big data and the integration of business processes.
While Germany wants to consolidate its pioneering position as the world’s supplier, the USA is relying on its expertise as a global networker and China is relying on short decision-making paths, capital intensity and a large domestic market in which it can scale quickly. In this situation, it is important that we concentrate on our strengths and resolutely tackle the digitization of industry and SMEs. However, this requires a much faster entry into the emerging B2B platform markets.
In Europe, we stand for a liberal value system, both economically and politically, which, as in the past, has proven to be the decisive differentiating factor in the medium and long term. The debate on the use of data is conducted in Europe in good tradition at an extremely high level and this in the good understanding that digitisation is not coming over us, but is made by people and is intended to serve them.
It is therefore the right moment to take a decisive step towards the future and to open up Europe’s path. To do this, we need a large, homogeneous domestic market that will make us almost competitive with the USA and China. We also need substantial investment in digital infrastructure and cybersecurity, as well as training and further education. Both competitive regions currently have the power to set standards in digitization as well. The goal of the European Union to create a single digital internal market is laudable, but final implementation is still pending. This implementation, however, is the important and very concrete next step in order to be able to achieve the competition-relevant scaling effects and to be able to play a competitive role in data-based business model innovations.
The second half is running and nothing is lost.
About the authors
Jochen Werne (48) is a member of the Executive Board and Chief Development Officer of Prosegur Cash Services GmbH, as well as a member of the Artificial Intelligence Learning Systems Platform and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jochen-werne-2292507a/
Twitter: @WerneJochen
E-mail: jw@JochenWerne.com
Dr. Johannes Winter (42) heads the office of the Learning Systems Platform and the technology department at the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech).
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johannes-winter-13048629/
Twitter: @jw4null
e-mail: winter@acatech.de
It was greatly stimulating discussing innovation and the impacts of modern technology on our business and society with international experts from South America, Europe and Asia at the 3rd Annual International Payment Summit, organised by ICT. All in the context of Coined Liberty 2.0
Find highlights here
Natalie Turner, Host of disruptive LIVE and Jochen Werne, CDO/CVO of Prosegur Cash Services, Germany in a lively discussion about the different aspects of change in companies and society. The interview touches aspects of fear and consciousness by giving examples reaching from Shakespeare to the Age of Enlightenment and our modern times of exponential technologies and artificial intelligence.
Find the full interview on DisruptiveLIVE, HERE
On Tuesday, November 5, 2019, Managing Director Dr. Stefan Hirschmann and his team from VÖB-Services organised an inspiring BANKENNETZWERK networking event “Digitisation and digital competence in banks” with an auditorium of 70 banking professionals.
Learning from history is crucial to understand the current societal changes triggered by technological progress. It‘s the basis to be able to make smart strategic decisions in a fundamentally changing business environment.
Some examples in the keynote referring to Professor Niall Ferguson‘s inspiring book „The Square and the Tower“. Enjoy some of his insights here
See more impressions HERE
A crypto currency challenges technology, regulation and humans.
Author: Jochen Werne
“Money is perhaps the most concentrated and acute form and expression of trust in the social-state order.”
Georg Simmel
In this clarity, the German philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel, born in 1858, formulated the value of a currency in his work “Philosophy of Money”. This clear and comprehensible insight also provides a simple basis for understanding why, for example, states rely on the independence of their central banks. And just as simply the question arises, which order do you trust when it comes to crypto currency?
Almost 4,000 of these currencies now exist worldwide. After Bitcoin, Ether, XRP, Litecoin and Co., Libra now wants to establish itself as a future heavyweight in the market – and with a noble goal. Libra is to become the cashless payment option “for mankind” and make international payment easier.
No crypto currency received comparable media attention, triggered only by the announcement of the project. And the emotionality and toughness with which the discussion is already being conducted shows how seriously the topic is being taken. It’s about reputation, influence, control, responsibility and only in the last instance about technology. Central banks and government bodies are sceptical about the “currency of the future” on a broad basis, even though the advancing globalization could argue for a single currency in the long run. A currency that supports a consistent free exchange of goods and services. Also under discussion is whether Libra Coin could be the means of payment for the approximately 1.7 billion people who have no access to banking services and whether the familiarity and the large target group of Facebook, combined with the announced low transaction costs, could make it possible to reach billions of people worldwide.
Technically, not all hurdles have been cleared yet: In order to make a stable coin possible, it is necessary to find the right technology. It is precisely this stability that is supposed to distinguish Libra Coin from other crypto currencies and thus also make it suitable for skeptical end consumers. Members such as Mastercard, Paypal or Ebay should also provide the Libra Association with their names and brand promises additional confidence for the end consumer. But already today the alliance is not as stable as the founding members had hoped and the exits of Mastercard, Visa and Paypal weakens the consortium.
The Libra Association has repeatedly emphasized that it wants to comply with all regulatory aspects, but there are voices at the political and banking levels that are extremely sceptical about the project. The new payment system raises many questions in monetary and legal terms. Central banks and supervisors want to keep an eye on the influence of the potentially new currency and usually share the view that whoever acts like a bank must be treated like a bank. In other words, comprehensive requirements must be met and regulations observed – especially at the international level. This is difficult because current regulations are designed for the classical financial system, with which the Libra system has largely no points of contact. The aim is to keep total regulatory influence and not to allow any possible loopholes.
Despite its American origin, the Libra Coin is to be administered from Geneva by the Libra Association. The idea here is to be regulated by the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority FINMA. Although Facebook has paid a lot of attention to the underlying technology, the legal issues still need to be clarified. Especially with regard to money laundering, consumer protection and possible misuse of the currency for illegal activities. Within the Association, there will be no special treatment for the founder Facebook, but equal voting rights for all members.
With regard to Germany, it can be said that its citizens are within the international average as far as their affinity for digital is concerned. However, a historical-cutlurell caution can certainly be observed with regard to the topic of money, which certainly explains the well-known love of cash. A more pronounced European awareness of data protection with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) makes many people, especially in Germany, sceptical about the subject. The fact that Libra was launched by Facebook is hardly a confidence booster after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The fear of the transparent customer meets with security concerns about one’s own savings. Every German knows the quote: “Friendship ends with money” and thus new things are always put test. Culturally different in Sweden, where sometimes it’s only possible to pay by card. The same in China, where WeChat Pay and Alipay are no longer just a trend.
As always, changes are taking place step by step. It remains to be seen whether Libra Coin in its current form has future prospects. In any case, any change can only work if it is accepted and used by the end consumer despite all skepticism.
And this stands and falls – also in the digital world – with what Georg Simmel already put in the centre in terms of money in the 19th century: CONFIDENCE.
A more in-depth look at money and value can be found in the article “Coined Liberty 2.0“.
Following the keynote on “Libra in Retail?” at the Payment Summit 2019 in Hamburg, the article “Libra and the Dilemma of Trust” has been published to give participants further insides on the topic.
This prize to be awarded to the person, group or team that contributed the most to the goal of creating international understanding within the year, of the Lord Warden Trophy and it was unanimously agreed by a panel of judges that this should be presented to Jochen Werne (a founder member of GOST as well as a member of RCPYC) for his outstanding work in reaching across national boundaries and promoting and advancing the spirit of sailing around the world both through his work with GOST and the various other organisations he represents, not least his organising the Lord Warden Challenge race. Congratulations to you Jochen.
Geoff Dunne esq., Commodere, Royal Cinque Ports Yacht Club Dover
It was a great honour to receive the Admiral of the Fleet The Lord Prize, awarded for the first time for international understanding, on behalf of all those who, through their commitment, have helped to unite people from different countries of our beautiful planet.
A great privilege to receive the prize from the hands of one of the people I greatly admire for his life’s work and especially for his brilliance in bringing people together. The Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, Admiral of the Fleet The Lord Boyce is a shining example for so many and a great inspiration.
