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What is a Regional Competitiveness Study and how is it used in the business world?

The “concept of regional competitiveness” means different things to different people. Businesspeople use the concept to understand economic and business conditions. Multi-laterals organizations use it to increase competition. Government officials and policymakers use it to benchmark the performance of policy stimulus.

Policymakers and state officials produce the highest number of regional competitiveness reports, which often encourage best practices guidelines for businesses. However, regional competitiveness reporting has become more expansive as academics, researchers, and businesspeople have embraced the framework.

Today, most regional competitiveness studies and resultant reports try to isolate factors that are either positive or negative in terms of economic growth. Often, businesspeople may find this broad framework helpful, but note that a vast majority of the information does not pertain directly to a business’ goals or actual conditions on-the-ground. Therefore, businesspeople increasingly use regional competitiveness studies as one of many tool when making decisions about investments.

The Connectivity of Framework

The regional competitiveness framework is most widely used by multilateral organizations to assess the performance of policies in economies across the world.

While regional competitiveness studies are arguably more useful for large multinational companies that will have more touch-points with national and local government; but small and medium sized businesses may also use it in the early stages of their decision-making process.

This helps multi-laterals organizations advocate successful economic strategies and assess long-term economic risks and opportunities across varied economies. However, regional competitiveness has become a more important concept for government

Increasingly, state and local governments use regional competitiveness frameworks for policymaking and develop strategies for resource allocation, and showcase the ability of a province, state, or other administrative unit to provide attractive business environment for investors – both domestic and international. Accordingly, businesspeople can use the same regional competitiveness frameworks to learn about their potential touch-points with a investment region and it’s governance by which affects conditions that may impact business growth prospectus.

Interview: Cameron Turnbull, General Manager, Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Pearl River Delta

What is CanCham’s mandate in South China?

Cameron Turnbull: Canadian Chamber of Commerce Pearl River Delta (CanCham PRD) is a networking and resource sharing platforms for the Canadian Business Community in the PRD.

Our Mission Statement:

We support the Canadian business community stakeholders in the PRD.

The Canadian Business Community includes:

Canadian Entrepreneurs
Canadian Companies
Canadian affiliated Entrepreneurs/Companies
Canadian Professionals living and working in PRD
Alumni of Canadian Universities
Chinese companies interested in doing business in/with Canada

We expect to advance our mission via the following functions:

Unify the Canadian professional and entrepreneur community by providing a platform for intelligent discussion and information sharing, both online and offline.
Strengthen social and business networks by organizing various events.
Generate new business activity by providing logistical support for Canadian business delegations.
Support Canadian entrepreneurs by providing advice and direct assistance to companies as needed.

Thought Bubble: What opportunities are available for startup companies addressing regulated services?

From Andreesen Horowitz’s article “What’s Next for Marketplace Startups?”

by Li Jin and Andrew Chen

The last twenty years saw the explosion of a number of services coming online, from transportation to food delivery to home services, as well as an evolution of marketplace models from listings to full-stack, managed marketplaces. The next twenty years will be about the harder opportunities that software hasn’t yet infiltrated — those filled with technological, operational, and regulatory hurdles — where there is room to have massive impact on the quality and convenience of consumers’ everyday lives.

The services sector represents two-thirds of US consumer spending [1] and employs 80% of the workforce [2]. The companies that reinvent various service categories can improve both consumers’ and professionals’ lives — by creating more jobs and income, providing more flexible work arrangements, and improving consumer access and lowering cost.

The companies mentioned in this essay just scratch the surface of regulated industries. You can imagine a marketplace for every service that is regulated, with unique features and attributes designed to optimize for the customer and provider needs for that industry. (A full list of regulated professions in the US can be found here.) We fully expect more Airbnb- and rideshare-sized outcomes in the service economy.

[1] Bureau of Economic Analysis, Personal Consumption Expenditures by Major Type of Product
[2] Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment by Major Industry Sector

Source

About Andreessen Horowitz

Founded in 2009 by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, Andreessen Horowitz (known as “a16z”) is a venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley, California, that backs entrepreneurs building the future through technology.

a16z is stage agnostic, meaning it invests in seed to late-stage technology companies, across the consumer, enterprise, bio/healthcare, crypto, and fintech spaces. It has $19.2 billion USD in assets under management across multiple funds, including the $1.4B Bio funds, the $3.1B Crypto funds, and the Cultural Leadership Fund.

a16z aims to connect entrepreneurs, investors, executives, engineers, academics, industry experts, and others in the technology ecosystem. It has built a network of experts including technical and executive talent; top media and marketing resources; Fortune 500/Global 2000 companies; as well as other technology decision makers, influencers, and key opinion leaders.

a16z uses this network as part of its commitment to help portfolio companies grow their business, so its operating teams provide entrepreneurs with access to expertise and insights across the entire spectrum of company building.

Company Value Statement

Thought Bubble: What differentiation techniques can companies selling online in China use to increase market share?

From the article “China’s next retail disruption: End-to-end value chain digitization” by PwC

The digitization of China’s retail market has been dramatic but it has mostly been on of front-office transformation. From where we sit today, these changes have felt like we are accelerating along a linear trajectory however, innovation is an arc. The time between hot new trends turning into platitudes is collapsing and these experiences reflect where we sit on the S-Curve of innovation. At 5 years old, digital may feel like a new trend but it is already reaching maturity. Mobile, social and eCommerce are now reaching the top of their S-Curves and so too is digital retail.

We see New Retail being characterized by 3 new areas:

Genuine consumer-centric operating models
Digitization and integration of the entire retail value chain
and Using data to enable smarter, faster, decision making and business impact.

Business Case: Transforming Mobility in Urban Environment

Client: an international business consultancy specialized in urban and architectural project management, project support, and architectural & town planning studies.

Objective: grow their urban transportation & infrastructure project presence in China’s emerging 2nd and 3rd tier cities.

Current status: client has project office established in a 1st tiered city of China for the past decade. Client has a portfolio of successfully completed projects in China’s wealthier coastal region demonstrating strong advantage in integrating public and private commercial space.

Challenge: client possess limited project exposure and business relationship in inland Chinese cities.

Analytical Framework using the Matrix previously introduced:

1. Supply & Demand – client need understand which urban centers have the greatest demand for urban transformation projects. Necessary data sets include passenger flow within transportation network (subway, metro rail, bus, ferry, hired vehicles, carpooling, etc.), population in city and metropolitan areas, and population density across districts, and finally existing modes of available transportation.

2. Influencing factors on future market behavior – governmental regulations and subsidies concerning public transport systems, profiles of major providers and their growth capacity to keep up with urban growth, projected city and metropolitan population growth, new technology adoption that aid in the construction and management of urban networks, and governmental policy plans for the future.

3. Additional considerations on long term potential – client may need to examine supporting industries for urban transformation, human resource availability for core and supporting industries, possible technical innovation that can disrupt the current market dynamics and if the government is currently supporting such technology in their five year plan, and finally intangible factors such as the reputed ease-of-doing-business in certain cities.

When the above framework is utilized, a more nuanced, three-dimensional picture of urban transformation is discovered and can uncover interesting opportunities for businesses.

Why is Actionable Business Intelligence so important to your business?

Actionable business intelligence is the missing link between the acquisition of data and the creation of business value. One common problem businesses often face is the struggle to make sense of their data and create value from their investment in Big Data.

Key Attributes Making Insights Actionable

What makes business insights more actionable?

“73% of today’s businesses desire to be “data-driven” in their decision planning, yet only 29% of them believe they are successful in connecting data analysis to action items and in turn, long term business goals.”

How scalable are actionable insights from business intelligence?

In order to achieve sustainable success in task implementation, insight must be “actionable” as well as “scalable”. In order for scalability to take place, a company is advised to institutionalize a process where Decision Planning can be replicated across regions as well as disciplines within that company’s organizational structure. Such process also need support from both internal players (analysts, operation managers, and corporate leadership) and external players (consultants and service providers).

Scalable Cycle of Actionable Business Insights

Turning data into action

How can your company utilize Urban Development data to support its decision-making process?

Even as emerging Asian cities like Manila, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and more have taken direction from the existing powerhouses of Seoul, Tokyo, Singapore and Hong Kong, future growth trends indicate a necessary split in the near term. Tokyo, the largest urban center in the world with a population of about 37 million, will start to experience population decline as early as 2045. On the other hand, the metro area of Manila is expected to more than double its 2010 population to over 23 million inhabitants by 2050.

It is expected that these emerging Asian urban centers will overtake existing developed Asian cities within the next few decades. The pressures of this population growth on the economy, particularly public transport, is immense. To resolve these issues, investment and private sector innovation is critical. The opportunities for businesses are not only in public transport, but in all infrastructure planning and construction, social systems, and other resident demands, and the need for a new paradigm is just beginning to present itself.

For instance, emerging urban centers are likely to leapfrog previous standards and technology to adopt new methods faster. Mobile payments in China and the success of homegrown ride hailing applications in China and South East Asia are good examples. In the example of Didi Chuxing, China’s largest ride-hailing app, the company took advantage of a “self-reinforced” eco-system of government incentive to promote domestic innovation, funding for entrepreneurial ventures, and the overall size of the Chinese market to compete aggressively and win against Uber, the international entrant.