Search results

Wholesaling is a brutal business. Only 20 percent of all wholesale distributors managed to beat the S&P 500 over the last five years, while more than 50 percent consistently destroyed shareholder value. To understand what drove a 1,000 percent difference in returns between the best and worst distribution performer, the author interviewed the managers of firms that have consistently out performed the market. One counterintuitive insight ‐ distribution must focus on local business. Local, not national, market share drives profitability. The interviewers also learned the ingenious tactics the most successful companies have adopted to capture higher gross margins than their competitors, and how these leading companies have reduced operating expenses. The best distributors share a three‐legged strategy: they focus investments to gain local market share, they select their service offering carefully to pump up gross margins and they slice operating expenses to the bone.

Even when global players are increasingly dominating an industry, smaller competitors can win in local markets by paying attention to the different needs and expectations of their customers. The top‐down standardization of strategy adopted by many multinational consumer product companies can fail badly if these differences are ignored. Consumer needs and desires are not necessarily consistent across different market segments. Competitors can often exploit these differences to great advantage, particularly if some core competencies, like distribution or market intelligence, can be brought to bear. The old adage “Think global, act local” still applies in many industries. This SuÄrez Company beer case study demonstrates the impact that local market knowledge and positioning can have on a product’s success. Nimble local or regional players may dethrone even the largest of multi‐national or global competitors who often fail to recognize or embrace cultural differences and unique market conditions. These same multinationals may derive global benefits by re‐integrating local market experience into their broader positioning, as Coors is doing now.

Mark Bertram reports findings from his survey of service users, which asked what the term ‘social inclusion’ meant to them.

This study aims to systematically review the economic complexity literature to advance the knowledge on its contribution to building regional competitiveness.

In this study, we did a systematic review of 111 relevant papers. In this regard, we did a thematic analysis on all the collected papers, which led to a two-level processed approach. In the first level, the contributions of the reviewed articles have been classified into three main streams. In the second level, the findings under each contribution category are analyzed and explained. This approach led to a thematic network demonstrating economic complexity and the dynamics of regional competitiveness and a set of managerial and policy implications. We followed a multiple processed approach for the systematic review of 95 papers that reveals considerable contributions in three categories, including measurement techniques, criticisms and exploratory studies.

Despite some critiques and the undertaken evolution in measurement techniques of complexity, economic complexity has become a well-known method mainly for regions' competitiveness dynamics. Our review demonstrates a nested network of economic complexity dynamics that drives policy advice concerning countries' status in their development path. The provided set of policies includes guidelines for underdeveloped and developing countries and general policy implications, applicable for all regional contexts for building competitiveness dynamics.

This research contributes to the literature on competitiveness from the window of economic complexity. The study allows a deep understanding of regions' productive structure role in their development and competitiveness. A set of policies for building regional competitiveness is provided concerning the study's findings. The literature gaps are identified, and future research ideas are provided for using economic complexity methodologically and logically to boost regional competitiveness.