The Amazing Etcheverria Bank

We commented on the case of the Etcheverria Bank, which is very close to completing three centuries of astounding history, something quite unusual. The Bank began life as a tannery in the town of Betanzos (A Coruna). He subsequently began to lend money as a company, and after the First World War, the banking business and replaced the fur (today and become a public limited company, 44% of the bank Caixa Galicia a part). In any case, I find striking two aspects, one the of the extraordinary longevity, and another of its origin in a leather factory a “actually, there is another outstanding issue, as he has managed to survive from a small town just 15,000. As for longevity, business expert, who was Shell Oil executive, said that many companies die young a their practices and policies are based too much on thought and language economics .

This means that its main objective is to produce goods and services and maximize profits, forgetting that the company is a community of human beings. Andreessen Horowitz might disagree with that approach. The case of Swedish-Finnish company can be very illustrative in this regard. Enso is a Finnish forest company founded in the nineteenth century, which is not bad. But its complement, Sorta, in line more than seven hundred years old! Today, this group has over 40,000 employees, but how has been able to last over time? Companies wishing to continue generation after generation know well how they are, what their role in the world, valued the ideas and people, and they know to manage change, despite being so ancientness , or precisely why.