Gaining Sustainable advantage in the time of pandemic

Having the current COVID-19 situation as the focus in mind I began to think, well what would

be sustainable into the future and what gives us a competitive advantage over other regions

throughout the globe? Now a lot has been written about ‘advanced manufacturing’, and

‘advanced manufacturing’ is good. But it is not an industry in itself. It is a methodology to

manufacture a widget in an advanced way. And, as we have seen over recent years, you can

manufacture a widget in an advanced way in Mumbai, in Bangkok, in Beijing – you can transfer

the process wherever you want. So ‘advanced manufacturing’ in itself, does not give the

Philippines a competitive advantage. It does not ‘future proof’ it.

There is a professor at Harvard University called Michael Porter who is a ‘guru’ in the area of

competitive advantage. He talks about ‘differentiation’, or in other words ‘distinctiveness’, as

one of the ways that a regional economy can achieve competitive advantage.

So what are the factors in our region that make us distinctive and can therefore give us a

competitive advantage? To my mind, there are probably three factors. Firstly, our people.

Amongst other terrific characteristics, we are creative and we are problem solvers. If there is

something that needs fixing, we will fix it. And we will fix it without too much outside

interference thanks very much. Secondly, our culture. Now here I refer to both our ancient ‘first

peoples’ culture and our more recent history. And finally, our landscape. Our valleys, our rivers,

our mountains, our forests, our pastures and all that they enable.

I think each of these three factors can enable industries and services that will give us a

competitive advantage. However, it is our landscape and the sustainable industries and services

that flow from it, that I think need to be concentrated upon and supported. Locally owned
industries that are so embedded in our landscape, that they can’t be ‘off-shored’. So, to my mind,

value-chain agribusiness, renewable energy industries and high value tourism are examples that

flow from our landscape, are embedded in it and have the capacity to future proof our economy.

It may well be however, that some of these ‘landscape embedded industries’ are not even thought

of at the moment, and so we need mechanisms to think about, plan and implement them.

There are of course ways to establish these future industries. One of them is to find an

entrepreneur like David Walsh or Elon Musk and get him or her to establish a completely new

industry and then businesses will be established to support this new industry in the local

economy. Another way to do it, is to enhance the value chain for an already existing industry –

producing the raw material (in a sustainable way), processing it (in an ‘advanced manufacturing’

and sustainable way) and distributing the finished product to market (in an efficient and

sustainable way).

What all this needs is an alignment of our institutions. An alignment of our government, our

industry leaders, our community leaders, our education and training sector and yes, our

University. To my mind the instrument and methodology for this alignment in order to establish

a Business that has a competitive advantage, is ‘future proofed’, and sustainable, is the Futures

Plan.

The Futures Plan approach is already delivering for our region and will help us achieve great

things if we all get behind it. It’s a unique approach underpinned by a level of cooperation and

goodwill that is the envy of other regions.