Canadian companies: Know your competitors before going global

McGill University business professor William Polushin uses an Olympics metaphor: a personal or Canadian best might not be good enough. "It starts with world-class products and services," he says.

The intensely integrated global economy is a world of opportunity - and risk. Succeeding means knowing who the competition is, what your value proposition is and how to leverage technology in the creation and marketing of your product or service. It means knowing more about the history, politics and social behaviour of distant regions than you ever imagined possible. It means searching out sources of information, contacts and assistance. It means a willingness to adapt to local conditions, to fail and try again. It means developing staying power. That is what thinking internationally requires.

"You really have to understand who your competition is," says Prof. Polushin, the founding director of the international competitiveness program at the Desautels Faculty of Management, and president of AMAXIS Inc., an international business-development services firm. "If you want to supply Bombardier, SNC-Lavalin, Rio Tinto, make sure that what you have to offer is not just as good as the guy across the street in Longeuil but good enough to go head to head with guys from the United States, from Europe, from Asia."

Read full article: Theglobeandmail.com, November 10, 2010