1. Operations and marketing have a major impact on competitiveness.

Business
organizations compete through some combination of their marketing and operations
functions. Marketing influences competitiveness in several ways, including identifying
consumer wants and needs, pricing, and advertising and promotion. Operations has a major
influence on competitiveness through product and service design, cost, location, quality,
response time, flexibility, inventory and supply chain management, and service. Many of
these are interrelated.
2. One factor that determines global competitiveness is productivity. Productivity is a
measure of output per input. The most common measure would be labour productivity. For
example, with improved technology and education, a country can enjoy higher labour
productivity and therefore produce goods at a lower cost. Higher labour productivity is the
key to increasing competitiveness and living standards at the same time. The greater the
level of competition in an economy (competitive intensity), the better off its citizens will be
and the better its successful firms will be able to compete beyond the boundaries of the
domestic economy. Opening an economy to the free entry of goods, services, competitors
and capital increases competitive intensity in the economy and, as a result, its productivity.
3. As the countries developed into newly industrialized and industrialized (Singapore and

South Korea) countries, productivity practices moved from product quality standardize to
extend to total quality where there is better interaction involving more departments in an
Organization requiring teamwork and people involvement (Ishikawa, 1984). In the 1960s,
investments in these countries by Japanese, European and American companies were
responsible for the industrialization of these countries. Together with the inflow of financial
investments, the management technology, i.e. quality, was brought into the country. The
Japanese companies, in particular, introduced their statistical process control in their
manufacturing plants in many of the Asian countries; statistics were used to monitor and
control productivity and quality. The Asian Productivity Organization, Japan, was one of the
key non-profit Organizations to promote quality improvements in many of the Asian
countries.