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Forum report: Business failing to close the corporate gender gap

Leading companies are failing to capitalize on the talents of women in the workforce, according to the World Economic Forum’s Corporate Gender Gap Report 2010.

It's the first study to cover the world’s largest employers in 20 countries and benchmark them against the gender equality policies that most companies should have in place but are in fact widely missing.

Released on International Women's Day, 8 March, the report provides a guide on what firms need to do to close the corporate gender gap..

The findings of The Corporate Gender Gap Report are an alarm bell on International Women’s Day that the corporate world is not doing enough to achieve gender equality. While a certain set of companies in Scandinavia, the US and the UK are indeed leaders in integrating women, the idea that most corporations have become gender-balanced or women-friendly is still a myth. With this study, we are giving businesses a one-stop guide on what they need to do to close the corporate gender gap,” said Saadia Zahidi, Co-author of the report and head of the Forum’s Women Leaders and Gender Parity Programme.

The report is based on a survey of 600 heads of human resources at the world’s largest employers. The survey contained over 25 questions and assessed companies on representation of women within their establishments and the use of gender-equality practices such as measurement and target setting, work-life balance policies and mentorship and training. The survey also asked respondents to identify the biggest barriers to women’s leadership and their opinion on the probable effects of the economic downturn on women’s employment in their countries and industries.

The United States (52%), Spain (48%), Canada (46%) and Finland (44%) have the highest percentage of women employees at all levels among the responding companies. India is the country with the lowest percentage of women employees (23%), followed by Japan (24%), Turkey (26%) and Austria (29%).

At the industry level, the findings of the survey confirm that the services sector employs the greatest percentage of women employees. Within this sector, the financial services and insurance (60%), professional services (56%) and media and entertainment (42%) industries employ the greatest percentage of women. The sectors that display the lowest percentage of women in the 20 economies are automotive (18%), mining (18%) and agriculture (21%).

Read more.

New Forum report sets out how sustainable consumption can transform business value

Natural resources are running ever lower while the world's population continues to climb higher. A global economy built on consumption is therefore a scary prospect.

CEOs in Davos representing a broad range of industries agreed that our global economy is at risk unless fundamental changes in the way we consume and produce products and services are made. A prosperous future depends on sustainable consumption - innovative new products and business models that achieve transformative efficiency and create new market opportunities.

To learn more, read their report "Redesigning Business Value: A Roadmap for Sustainable Consumption".

Tomorrow's businesses will meet the future by channelling their creativity to form markets that capture the emerging opportunities these shifts offer. The formula for business success during our era of great change will place a premium on innovation, collaboration and smart investments to shape a globally prosperous and sustainable future.

To build a future of sustainable consumption, we need:
- Collaborative innovation: Sustainability helps drive innovation and should be at the core of the design of products and services and the development of new business models. This can be brought about by new forms of collaboration along entire value chains.
- Lifecycle thinking: Resources are more valuable than ever, and the days of the linear value chain are numbered as we increasingly have the technologies and the will to measure our environmental impact across the entire lifecycle of a product and recover materials to embrace closed loops.
- Consumer engagement: To shift consumption patterns around the world, there needs to be a new supply of sustainable products and services, as well as a market pull for sustainable consumption, embraced by all 7 billion consumers globally.
- Investment: To spark a prosperous future, business needs to look beyond short-term pressures and focus on investment for the long term, working to build understanding among investors of the value at stake in long-term planning.

CEOs believe they have the potential to create new business models that build lasting prosperity for the many and not for the few; that make wise use of natural resources; that internalize social and environmental capital; and that focus on innovation to thrive in a low-carbon, dematerialized economy driving smarter consumption.

CEOs are working together through the World Economic Forum's platform to develop practical projects and partnerships, including workstreams on innovation, lifecycle metrics and consumer engagement.

Ahead lies a tremendous challenge, but also a great opportunity for those who meet it.

Randall Krantz, Associate Director, Environment Initiatives, World Economic Forum

Forum's Financial Development Report 2009 shows global financial centres' lead is weakening

The world's largest economies took the biggest hit in the World Economic Forum's second annual Financial Development Report. Global financial centres still lead in the report's Index, but the effects of financial instability have pulled down their scores compared to last year.

The United Kingdom, buoyed by the relative strength of its banking and non-banking financial activities, claimed the Index's top spot from the US, which slipped to third position behind Australia largely due to poorer financial stability scores and a weakened banking sector.

Some developing countries performed well in the financial stability section of the Index. Chile came in third while Malaysia, Mexico and Brazil are all in the top 15. Norway and Switzerland took the top two spots in this category.

The report ranks 55 of the world's leading financial systems and capital markets. It analyses the drivers of financial system development and economic growth in developed and developing countries to serve as a tool for countries to benchmark themselves and establish priorities for reform.

The rankings are based on over 120 variables spanning institutional and business environments, financial stability, and size and depth of capital markets, among other factors.

Read the full report, download the rankings (PDF I Excel) and read country highlights.

Watch the interview with co-author James Bilodeau, Associate Director, Financial Institutions, Head of Emerging Markets Finance, World Economic Forum USA

Switzerland tops US in Competitiveness Rankings

Switzerland heads the overall ranking in The Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010, released today by the Forum ahead of its Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2009 in Dalian. The United States falls one place to second position, due to the weakening in its financial markets and macroeconomic stability. Singapore, Sweden and Denmark round out the top five. European economies continue to prevail in the top 10 with Finland, Germany and the Netherlands following suit. The United Kingdom, while remaining very competitive, has continued its fall from last year, moving down one more place this year to 13th, mainly attributable to continuing weakening of its financial markets. The People’s Republic of China continues to lead the way among large developing economies, improving by one place this year, solidifying its position among the top 30. Among the three other large BRIC economies, Brazil and India also improve, while Russia falls by 12 places. Several Asian economies perform strongly with Japan, Hong Kong SAR, Republic of Korea, Taiwan, China also in the top 20. In Latin America, Chile is the highest ranked country, followed by Costa Rica and Brazil. Watch Jennifer Blanke, Director of the Forum’s Global Competitiveness Network discuss the highlights here.

East Asian Economies Top the Global Enabling Trade Report 2009

East Asian economies – Singapore and Hong Kong SAR – occupy the top two positions in the Enabling Trade Index ranking, followed by Switzerland, Denmark and Sweden, according to the the World Economic Forum's Global Enabling Trade Report 2009. Canada, Norway, Finland, Austria and the Netherlands complete the top-10 list. The results mirror the openness of Singapore and Hong Kong SAR to international trade and investment as part of their successful economic development strategy.

Both economies have put into place highly efficient border administrations and supportive business environments. They are endowed with well-developed transport and telecommunications infrastructures ensuring rapid transit to final destination. These attributes are further supported by business environments that are conducive to trade.

The United States benefits from a conducive business environment, as well as excellent infrastructure. The US position is weakened by restricted access to markets and concerns about costs to business resulting from crime, violence and terrorism. China performs well with respect to transport services and has swift import-export procedures, but trade development is held back by highly restricted access to its markets.

The Global Enabling Trade Report 2009 is launched at a crucial time for global trade, as overall economic activity declines, trade volumes drop and public authorities adopt counter-cyclical stimulus policies and institutional reforms. The report serves as a timely reminder of the risks of protectionism and of the widespread prosperity and poverty reduction associated with the expansion of international trade in the years leading up to 2008.

Watch interviews with the authors below and download the full report here: http://tr.im/getr09

Key Strengths & Weaknesses of Mexico's Competitiveness

The World Economic Forum’s Mexico Competitiveness Report 2009 is the first-ever study of this type for Mexico. Using the Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index’s methodology and the latest thinking in competitiveness research, The Mexico Competitiveness Report 2009 provides a comprehensive overview of the country’s current competitiveness landscape, highlighting strengths and problematic areas.

Ranked 60th in the Global Competitiveness Index 2008-2009, Mexico presents important strengths in its market size, sophisticated business sector and diversified production structure, as well as in its sound macroeconomics fundamentals. However, a number of weaknesses remain in the quality of institutions, goods and labour markets, education standards and its innovation potential.

Closing the Global Gender Gap

Sweden (1), Norway (2), Finland (3) and Iceland (4) once again top the rankings in the latest Global Gender Gap Report. All countries in the top 20 made progress relative to their scores last year – some more so than others. Latvia (13) and Lithuania (14) made the biggest advances among the top 20, gaining six and seven places respectively, driven by smaller gender gaps in labour force participation and wages. The Report covers a total of 128 countries, representing over 90% of the world’s population.

Click on the links in the right hand column to learn more about the Report; the rankings (PDF I Excel); country profiles; photos and the press release.

Denmark tops World Economic Forum Global Information Technology Report 2006-2007 rankings for the first time

Denmark tops the rankings of The Global Information Technology Report 2006-2007 's "Networked Readiness Index", as a culmination of an upward trend since 2003. Sweden, Singapore and Finland follow, while the United States loses ground in networked readiness, falling 6 places to 7th position. With record coverage of 122 economies, the GITR has become the world’s most respected assessment of the impact of ICT on the development process and the competitiveness of nations.

Watch video interviews with the Report authors and read more here!

How does your country perform in the rankings? How important is ICT to your life?

challenging paradigms

Related to the previous blog posted on the late 19^th Century migration, it appears that

Australia

is one of the few countries that more or less maintain a model of migration consistent with those days. They allow a controlled amount of unskilled-labor immigration, and contrary to what could be expected by European policy setters, unemployment of the local population is lowered. I actually thing the

US

accomplishes a similar feat via significant illegal unskilled labor immigration.

Paradigm to question: Countries should first find jobs for their locals before allowing immigration.

Another key problem seems to be that people skills do not match job skills. On the job training has to start playing a bigger role. On the job training and investment in people has played a much bigger role a few decades back, but it seems that the increased mobility of people and the focus on tradable skills have made the economics of investment in people poor in many cases. I’ll use a very brief economics term here, not critical, there appears to be a Nash Equilibrium in people investment. Since you cannot hold to your investment, it is better not to invest, at the end everybody ends up acting in the same way.

Singapore

’s approach to this problem is to make training mandatory.

Singapore

taxes 1% on all payrolls and makes training mandatory. I think even on countries where this type of approach could not be met, it is still clear that mutual and coordinated investment in training by a majority of the market participants.

Crazy ideas:

Put a tax of 1% on payrolls for all employees in the world and invest most of the money in training and a small portion should go to the institution that trained and educated that person, in whatever country tha may be (this could solve some of the Brain –Drain problems of the Philippines and South Africa with their medical personnel etc. )

In the same way that Supply Chain theory has been coping with ever more fluctuating demand by trying to customize products the closest to the consumer, we should take a similar approach on innovation for Education and Training. We need a new set of basic skills that allows for later stage customization according to market needs.

First Challenges identified

The big debate has finally begun around the theme of regional identities and struggles and the first conversations identifying the key challenges have begun to take place in small intimate groups, discussion panels and in the big townhall debate.

The first day of the 2006 Annual Meeting was dedicated to identify the key challenges for each of the major themes of this year's event.

With regards to regional identities and struggles , the main challenges identified, with potential global impact, that face the five major world regions over the coming 12-18 months were:

1. Institution and Governance:  Pushing through the reform agenda, democratization, transparency and building a sense of regional identity and community.  The new “conservative” wave of political leadership. 
2. Security: Taming social unrest through integration, militarization of rouge states and the development of a new breed of terrorism
3. Economics: The long oil boom and the repercussion on global economy. The winners and the loosers, Market reforms
4. Development Struggle: new models of the welfare state for the 21^st century, reform of the labour market and changing balance of demographic population of nations ( local vs immigrants),

Key regional questions that need to be addresssed in the next 12-18 months the most pressing ones identified were:

In terms of k

1. Europe:  How can the European Union clearly define the region’s priorities to ensure that the European Union can work.  Solving the key governance and leadership issue are key to ensuring the ecomomic development of the region in face of a european identity crises

2. Middle East: How can governments in the middle east ensure that their elections are not simply “window dressing” exercises benefiting simply national elites?  How can the long oil boom ensure regional development and stabilty. 

3. Latin America: How can, or will, the new regional political alliances arising from the coming to power of conservative goverments make sure that the market the reforms accomplished thus far are continued?

4. Africa: How can african governments keep the reform agenda moving forward to ensure good public and corporate governance practices become wide spread and they create the structures necessary for strong intra-regional trade aimed at  economic development.

The real question however is what are the mechanisms for change that each region needs to adopt  in order to provide concrete solutions to the key challenges identified?  Are interntational bodies or umbrella organisations going to be able to provide the answers or are the transformations needed only able to be done at a local level?