The World is Not Flat

Made in France: champagne sparkles outside Café de Flore

IN 1913, IN THE 6TH ARRONDISSEMENT OF PARIS IN ST. GERMAIN-DES-PRÉS, THE POET APOLLINAIRE AND A SMALL GROUP OF WRITERS INCLUDING ANDRÉ BRETON AND LOUIS ARAGON MET AT THE CAFÉ DE FLORE AND SET DOWN THEIR SURREALIST MANIFESTO. Years later, during the German Occupation of Paris, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and other philosophers turned that café into their de facto salon, and further staked out French intellectual territory. They drank Champagne, whose name, taken from the wine-growing province east of Paris, had been fiercely protected by law since the 1891 Treaty of Madrid. The battle over the Champagne trade name continues to this day. It’s not only semantic: exports of French Champagne rose 5.1 percent in 2011, to 142 m bottles, the second-largest volume in the country’s history. Exports of French wine and spirits have passed €10 billion per year, making the industry the second-largest contributor to France’s trade balance, after aerospace and ahead of perfume and cosmetics.

And in the example of schools of thought and names of wine, a larger metaphor: “You know,” says Pierre Tapie, Dean of the ESSEC Business School, “there are two ways to think about globalization. One way is to think that the world is flat. If you think that the world is flat, you will go global offering a standardized product in all places. Think of Hilton hotels. If you think that the world is diverse, that the world is made of colors and textures and hills and so on, you will go global by your know-how, by your values. You will empower people in India, Brazil, China to express your DNA in very different places where it can create growth and economic value. These two ways to think about globalization are extremely different.”

That French DNA is rooted in the tradition of continental European capitalism and the fate of geography. The country’s economic system has been shaped by a large population living for centuries on a small piece of land. “We have had to cope with the scarcity of the space,” Tapie says. “For that reason, the regulation between the people in charge of the common good – the public good – and the people in charge of economic creation, has been balanced in a different way than has been the case in America and in the large Anglo-Saxon countries.“

In addition to that, France, since the 17th century, has had a tradition of a very powerful state. What has emerged has been called “state capitalism” — an economy where the state looks out for employees’ and citizens’ rights while at the same time investing in many of the country’s most important industries, including avionics, nuclear power, and trains. “This history of mixing the public good and private entrepreneurship has become so much a part of who we are,” says Tapie.

It’s one of the differences that French business leaders — and intellectuals — want to hold onto, especially in a fast-changing world. Says ESSEC professor Hamid Bouchikhi, “In France, the collectively shared will is: Let’s participate in globalization. We have to embrace it. But let’s try at the same time to keep what makes us unique.”

Essec’s fascinating courses like MBA Paris have received worldwide appreciation. Financial Times has given excellent rankings to the courses of this business institute. Its courses provide students with hands on experience about various financial markets. Students get opportunities to attend various seminars and international conferences. The school provides students with many chances to hone their skills in different ways.