SD Vision - Halyps Cement

10
vendors and opinions of other users.
Consumerism will bloom and maintain
its ethical dimension. A large minority,
around 40% in Europe, even considers
that our professional work is useful to
society. Reinforced by the Internet this
minority is going to continue to exert
pressure on the authorities and institutions
to take into account long-term
issues. Indignant reactions of a signifi cant
portion of citizens, on both sides of
the Atlantic, against the immorality of
those who have triggered the crisis will
intensify this ethical trend. More and
more people are going to want to search
for meaning outside of just consuming
more of anything and anyhow, but the
risk remains that this may stimulate
reactions of populism, communitarian
withdrawal, or even fascism.
To be or to have? Is this the new
dilemma?
There is a lot of talk about «economy of
functionality». We discover that people
buy functions and not products that
support them. This has always been
the case. People have never (except by
snobbery) bought technology but what
it provides. Just today the technique
expands the range of possibilities. But
from the portable phonograph to the
radio set, or the record player, Walkman
or MP3 player, the users have always
A town is primarily a place for
exchanges between people who
spend there a signifi cant part
of their life and between these
residents and others who come
and go.
bought the pleasure of listening to
music when and where they wanted. For
businesses, the vital question is to ask
constantly about what their customers
actually buy: a car, the pleasure of
looking at it, of showing it, of driving it,
of mobility? Or the pleasure of owning
it? There are always been people who
take comfort in owning a good, even if
they do not use it, others have always
been much more oriented towards
its use. Networks that allow to do
things remotely, use distant resources,
encourage the development of services
giving access to goods that the user
does not need to manage himself.
How should companies face the
new consumers’ trends? Quality or
quantity: which is the right way for
the future economy?
In an environment of quick progress, and
rapid obsolescence of many products,
solutions that guarantee performance
will develop. People will move to buying
peace of mind, but maintaining trust
will become paramount, this is what
still hinders cloud computing, that is the
remote use of computers and software
that we do not own.
Companies that want to ensure
sustainable development will have to
be able to renew quickly their offer to
their consumers, listen carefully to what
they have to say to offer tailor-made
solutions. Compromising quality for
quantity is extremely dangerous.
Toyota’s diffi culties are typical: they used
to be the masters of quality and are now
crucifi ed with non-quality issues. There
is no way by which you can sacrifi ce,
for very long, quality on markets where
there are strong competitors ready to
use all networks to call to witness the
world public opinion and ruin your
reputation. This will still remain possible
in certain sectors where monopolistic
players have huge fi nancial resources
to misinform the press and the public
opinion. But innovation periodically calls
into question the monopoly positions,
including in the computer fi eld.
Mega-cities and urban environment
is where we will live in the coming
years. Will sustainable construction
play a signifi cant role in the building
of the new urban community?
The two obvious trends will be the desire
of well-being, and therefore health
on one hand and price on the other.