And some companies say they are competitive...

I am a business administration student and some times I can´t help me looking at companies mistakes in Brazil. The business administration course in Brazil is so popular and wide attended that just in my city there are 14 institutions offering it. My city has 500 thousand people. It is probably that more than three hundred people graduate in business administration every six months and over six hundred people a year. It is quite a big number, isn´t?
We could imagine that there are so many good people knowing about procedures, costumer care, production control and so on that we are in fact building a good path to turn our country competitive. Everybody says that and a large number of people believe in that. But the problem is that it is not true.
Despite the fact we are “creating” professionals and teaching professional skills for many people, our country is still struggling with our culture. And our culture is quite strong to be put aside. What aspect of our culture am I talking about? Well, I am talking about the fact that Brazilian people are never worried in doing the best thing at the best time in the best way. We always are worried in doing things that we should have been done yesterday. So we are always doing these things in the faster way, in a delayed time and in the easiest way possible (not in the best way to do).
It is annoying. And it is annoying because the quality passes by.
I happened to be looking for suppliers for one project and I had to be in touch with many companies throughout the country. I spent almost 2 mouths trying to contact companies in different sectors. After contacting almost two hundred companies, I just received answer from less than ten of them. Is it possible? It would be just 5% of return. And I have to say that many of them took many days to contact me back.
It is funny because I was interested in being their costumer. I was not doing span or something like that. I started my contact with “I would love to know more about your company and your products...” and do you believe that many of them were not engaged in getting this opportunity to show themselves to a potential costumer?
I was told by my friends that maybe I took the wrong addresses, but I don´t think so. Is it possible I took 190 wrong addresses? Even if these addresses were in fact wrong, it would not be something positive and it could not put them out of guilt from being unprofessional companies; it is their responsibility to keep their contact updated.
But anyway, the wrong addresses possibility is out of question once my e-mail service would say that the contacts were not delivered. I didn´t get any notice from it.
In an accidental situation I met this guy who were the salesman of one of those companies that I didn´t get any answer. In this occasion I was not tough, but I was not with that smiling face. After greeting I told him “So it is pretty coincidence see you here. I was really interested in you products a couple of weeks ago, but just talked with another supplier...” and then the man came on “Ow.. it is a pity. But you know, I can make to you that special price. I can sell to you for less than this company is actually doing.”
“Ok” said I. “But, you know. I contacted your company a mouth ago and I haven´t got any answer since then. I even tried to call them, but the number wasn´t working. It was just in a busy tom. So I decided another one. Sorry.”
“Oh man. You know e-mail address never works... and phone calls are complicated these days. Please, come on my office and I really can do some special to you.”
Well. Needless to say, I didn´t get in touch with him again and with his company. If I need some help, or a technical assistance, or complain about some mistake in the order delivered? I could not contact them by e-mail or phone... what would that be so? Telepathy?
I didn´t make any accordance with another company, I lied to him. Actually I did not need them anymore. But I thought it would be good show him that the costumer needs attention in the right time. I kept thinking after that in many things. One is that he would give me a special price which it would be less than others suppliers, what is to say is that he would probably loose a bit of money just to repair his fault. Or at least, make less profit. If he or his company had done the right thing, contact me at the time e showed their products and prices I would be so happy that even if they had a higher price, just because the attention I would make business with them.... in that occasion or in the future. Now in the next time, if I need it, I will really look for another one.

Man's Search for Meaning : Viktor Emil Frankl X Marketing Class

In order to participate in a seminary promoted by my university professor of marketing, I was requested to read this book called “Man's Search for Meaning” By Viktor Frankl. These book is a kind of book that deserves a profound thinking after reading it.
Viktor Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor. This book is his account on the days being an inmate on concentration camps. Far from denouncing the atrocities that was made in these camps, frankl changed the perspective and wrote a kind of essay on how the events were perceived from the prisoners and how the prisoners handled with the overwhelming situation and with all the suffering that they were faced to live.
The author managed to show his point of view on existentialism, the struggle for surviving and how to live is always the only option. These points are the roots for the author´s logotherapy, which is considered the "Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy" (the first one is the Freud's psychoanalysis and the second one is the Adler's individual psychology).
Logotherapy is an existential analysis that brings forward the “will to meaning” and says that life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones and our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.
The author himself experienced this meaning while working in an extreme situation where he happened to think in his wife. He said he understood in that occasion what many thinkers and poets had proclaimed that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.
Full of emotion, this book is amazing. Despite the dark and heavy background, the book is a quite optimist account. The author´s position of not showing revenge thoughts give us a sense that we can change things and for changing the world we need stop looking at the other´s faults and start shape our thoughts and acts up to find meaning to our existence.
After reading the “Man's Search for Meaning” I was full of thoughts and ready to talk about them on my marketing class. I was thinking that it is quite hard to accept what happened and what men are capable to do with each other; that the worst is that even today after too much suffering there are many people in many places in the world passing through situations like that. I started to think how is meaningless many aspects of our reality and how there are so many things to be changed, to be transformed in our world. There are so many things to be done and first of all we need to know and understand ourselves; and find a positive meaning of our life; a meaning that could be match with the transformation of this reality in a better one.
For my disappointment, the discussion in our class was poor. We didn´t talk about the meaning of life or other philosophic issue. We didn´t even talk about our position or about our role in the society. We didn´t talk about the weakness of the system or the necessity of thinking better on our acts. We talked about marketing, about branding, about propaganda and how get position in the market to sell our products and make profit. What was supposed to be a great opportunity to have a good conversation, was in fact, a bored time spent together and a frustrated meeting.
We had a little brief on Second World War and about Nazism Propaganda. The professor explained how Hitler invented many tools on mass communications and through these tools he managed to make a whole nation to follow him in his politic vision. We didn´t get on human nature or others facts on History to understand what was going on. I believe that despite the fact we are grown and attending university, many people are still confused about many things on Second World War, and that would have been a good occasion to talk a little about it. But I have to say that not so many people were thinking like me in that moment.
We came on talking about some topics from the book, which the students were asked to write them down separately and then put all together to be read by some chosen ones in order to make the presentation of the topics more organized. Every single topic were presented to the class and then opened to be discussed. Every single topic had to be related with organizational environment and nothing more profound than it.
Well, actually it was my fault to believe that we could have some philosophic moment in an administration course. In addiction, we are going to the final laps of our graduation; this kind of feeling must have died some time ago, after the first year course.
I could say that I should have expected that, but the fact is that I feel myself a little bit strange for using this meaningful account in our so market directed discussion without feeling.