The core strategy team at the OTF Group pioneered the competitiveness approach to economic development. It was initially part of the Monitor Country Competitiveness unit within the Monitor Group. Today, the OTF Group is the only firm that is truly focused on building country competitiveness in emerging and transitional economies around the world.

The OTF Group is committed to making a difference in the world and to effecting meaningful changes for our clients. There are five conditions that must be present for nations to improve their degrees of competitiveness; and, therefore the standards of living of their people:

• insight
• leadership
• moral purpose
• receptivity
• tension

Country Competitiveness has been specifically designed to support leaders who seek to foster the above essentials to produce positive changes and prosperity for their people, companies, and nations.

Objectives

The OTF Group advises leaders of private and public sector organizations on how to most effectively:

• increase the competitiveness of firms and clusters
• facilitate significant, long-lasting changes
• build cultures of innovation and competitiveness
• create prosperity in the new global economy

Approach

Based on OTF Group’s extensive competitive strategy experience, a customized national competitiveness program is developed for each client. An experienced OTF team works to put the principles of competitiveness theory into practice:

• nations and states should seek to build advantages based on the physical assets, knowledge capital, and human resources already in existence
• international competitiveness often arises in clusters of geographically concentrated industries
• firms compete, not nations
• there are no inherently good or bad industries
• competitive advantage is built over decades, not over short-term business cycles

Phase I: Energizing

The first phase of most competitiveness programs should focus on identifying or creating the five conditions for change: insight, leadership, moral purpose, receptivity, and tension.

Activities Include:

• creating tension for change
• decoding current business models in order to develop competitive new models
• creating a shared vision among the leaders for change

Phase II: Diffusion

The second stage, diffusion, is focused on converting the informed choices of the first phase into real action and on realizing the short-term results.

Activities include:
• communicating the vision of the new model
• undertaking pilot action initiatives
• creating guiding coalitions for action

Phase III: Affirmation

In the third stage, leaders use the short-term wins of Phase II to mobilize the nation at large into action and to establish new norms of thought and action.

Activities include:
• using the short-term wins to affirm attitudes and practices that create competitiveness
• institutionalizing the guiding coalitions into self-sustaining networks for action and learning
• aligning public and private sector institutions behind the competitiveness coalitions
Country Competitiveness — Key Features and Benefits
Features Benefits
Customized Competitiveness Programs Based on decades of experience, the OTF Group’s Competitiveness experts develop a highly customized program for each client.
Firm-based Approach The OTF Group has the only competitiveness-building approach which starts by helping individual firms to develop winning new products and services, then re-engineering the cluster and national environments around them, not the reverse.
Experienced Team Based in Country The OTF Group advisors live and work in the country, working alongside leaders every day.
Proprietary Methodologies The OTF Group’s proprietary methodologies and frameworks help individuals and groups develop deep insights and winning strategies.
Co-Strategy Process™ This unique problem solving approach enables clients to make customers, partners and employees into allies in the competitiveness-building process.
The StrategyBUILDER™ System The OTF Group’s proprietary software allows participants in large-scale competitiveness-building programs to develop their own proprietary strategies, not simply follow broad public recommendations.
Results, not Reports OTF Group clients measure success by the results of the competitiveness of their firms and the prosperity of their communities, not by the completion of reports or attendance at workshops.

At the OTF Group, we go beyond describing the problem to address the root-cause challenges to increased competitiveness. We believe in achieving high quality results by focusing on our clients’ needs and by building competitiveness from the “individual firm out,” not from “the environment in.”

Pricing

Our Country Competitiveness work is led by Michael Fairbanks. To find out more please contact us at countrycompetitiveness@otfgroup.com.