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 | SA FIRMS MUST WAKE UP TO A NEW WAVE OF COMPETITION
The devastation of the textile industry and carnage in the motor sector are just a foretaste of what's to come across the economy. No sector will be unaffected by global financial crisis. Or by a rapid escalation in competitiveness by world class competitors from China, India, Brazil, and other countries.
Companies have always faced challenges, always had to deal with change. But now the business game is in the throes of its biggest, fastest transformation ever.
In just the past five years, some 3 billion people - about half the world's population - have joined the free market. New competitors have emerged everywhere. And now they are more aggressive than ever.
They're offering customers radical new value propositions. They're using technology to cut costs, streamline processes, and raise service levels. They're cutting costs - and prices - to the bone. And there is no way to stop them advancing.
Firms everywhere are at a strategic inflection point. But many South African managers haven't grasped this reality. They are in more trouble than they imagine.
Manufacturers will battle to compete not only at the low end of the market, but also at the high end - in the "value added" niches that many see as their salvation. The bar of performance is being raised fast, and Asian factories are now racing up the quality and sophistication curve.
Nor will the services sector be immune to the new pressures. Here, too, India and China pose a major threat.
They're taking eveyone on. So firms in the US, Europe, Japan, and elsewhere are having to shape up too. The hypercompetition we've been warned about for so long really is upon us.
The famous resilience of SA executives is being tested as never before ... and this is just warm-up time. So consider these questions:
1. Do you have the team you need to fight tomorrow's battles?
2. Are you building the right capabilities and resources fast enough?
3. Are you spending enough time rethinking your organizational arrangements -structures, technologies, processes - and are you investing enough in them?
4. Have you taken the hard action that's necessary to get through this moment?
5. Do you have bold, well though through plans for the future?
6. Are you driving forward aggressively and with a clear purpose ... or just dreaming of a better future?
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