Compete To Win In A Global Market
Increasing worldwide competition calls on us to respond more rapidly, innovate faster and add more value. This is not only what is expected by American consumers but by the growing customer base overseas for goods and services provided by American companies and workers. How we respond to these challenges and opportunities brought on by an interconnected worldwide economy today will shape the prosperity of Americans for generations to come. Meeting this challenge requires creativity and commitment.
What is your plan to creating and sustaining your competitive edge?
Another key component is the ability to access the growing markets of the worldwide marketplace. With a significant expansion of free trade agreements in recent years, American business has expanded opportunities to market their products and services to new customers around the world. From Wall Street to main street. The impact of worldwide markets is enormous.
Do you know how you are going to grow your customer base and serve them?
The impact is already evident with some companies, and there are many great examples of American companies that have successfully driven economic transformations to bolster competitiveness in global markets. Such transformations will accelerate over the next decade as strategies are built to connect with the worldwide marketplace. As we face new challenges in the interconnected worldwide marketplace, opportunities abound if we remain fast, flexible, innovative and motivated.
Are you missing out on business opportunities?
How do you best compete in the global marketplace, find the right customers and sell?Smart, collaborative, forward looking competitive strategies are the key to success. We know that every major country in the world is getting in the game, is trying to compete harder, is trying to create an environment for innovation and we are no longer sort of on our own. Whereas just about 20 years ago we were trying to convince the world to adopt free enterprise and attract foreign capital and get into trade, I don’t think we have to do any more convincing. People have gotten the message and they caught on to it pretty fast and well.
Thomas Friedman in his Post-American World, he doesn’t talk so much about the decline of the US. He talks about the rise of the rest of the world. And the concept that the rest of the world is emerging prosperous and many of those people are young. And they look on their cell phones and can see how their life can look like, and they are going to do their best to get there. People in other countries are going to move and improve their lives, whether we choose to be in the game or not.
Are you in the global game?
And now, our challenge is not so much convincing people but increasing our level of competitiveness that we can continue to lead the world. Many US companies have lost their competitiveness or worse, have lost importance relative to other companies around the world.
Ensuring you continue to lead and stay competitive – how are you planning to do that?
We live in a knowledge-based global economy where skills are the critical ingredient for success. Instead of focusing on one’s insecurities, the task should be to work on a strategic competitive plan for your company and not incremental fixes to immediate small problems. By 2020, 95% of all the consumers in the world are outside of the US. These are our customers, our consumers, our partners; we are going to have to work with them. Sell to them. It is how we marshal the assets to take advantage of this and not look back, since we cannot go back anymore.
Do you have the right talent and skills to get your company global?
Where in the world should you go? How are you going to take the lead? There is no simple answer, or one size fits all. We have to work on lots of agendas simultaneously with a common sense of purpose. With a strategic sense of where we need to go.
Where are you heading for? What are you going to do when you get there?