Competitive Advantage

We can call upon our faith (instead of our sentiments?) if indeed we want to move the nation forward – because we don’t want the world to leave us behind? We’re competing against the rest of the world and we want to get our act together . . . fast?

What’s the rest of the world up to? For example, the US, not just Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs (following their SEC case that was finally settled), is doing “rigorous self-examination” given the country’s eroding competitiveness. And the writer recently witnessed how this is translated in their daily lives.

It was a weekend and he needed medical attention, and went to the emergency room of their neighborhood hospital – an extension of a New York university hospital, ranked among the country’s best. But his experience from several years ago was not to crow about – the first thing they wanted to know was his medical insurance. This time the registration was a breeze: providing only his name, birth date and chief complaint. The insurance bit (and it was a breeze as well and patient-friendly) came only after he had been seen by the physician. Forget about the state-of-the-art medical equipment and devices; and the doctor standing in front of a computer keying-in the writer’s responses; and the Filipino nurse who took his vital signs and later came out with the prescription and information to edify him about his complaint, both printouts from the doctor’s computer, and then she helped the writer to his first dose of medicines. A couple of days later he received a questionnaire to rate his experience – from promptness to courtesy to his overall impression of the emergency room staff!

The writer recently did jury duty in a criminal case, and again he received a questionnaire to rate the performance and behavior of the judge! During the jury selection he thought that the court was efficiently run, able to assure him that all it would take were 4 days of hearings; after alerting the judge that he was scheduled to travel overseas. Justice delayed is justice denied?

These things they do in the private sector given their bias for efficiency, but not in the health care and the justice systems? They do give a peek into how the US is consciously raising performance as a way of life? That competitive advantage is not a ‘bumper sticker’ – it is part of the way people do their day-to-day and thus ingrained?

But that’s the US? The writer and his wife just traveled from North America to Eastern Europe, flying on an Eastern European airline and going through two of their airports. The planes were new (and the service would put US airlines to shame!) and the airports were modern and efficient. That was the wife’s reaction; and so the writer told her about the Mother Teresa airport, more modest but still modern and efficient, in (Tirana) Albania, among the poorest countries in Europe! Are we then surprised why the EU downgraded our airport?

How do we react? Recognize that we can’t do our thing in isolation – because we’re competing against the rest of the world? That we truly need to get our act together . . . fast, and step up efforts to move the country forward?

We have to toss ‘que sera sera’ – that we can’t fix government, we can’t fix corruption, and we can’t fix complacency? If ex-socialists can pursue market economy, how radical is our challenge? (The writer is having morning coffee in a café in Sofia; Western music is playing and parked outside are Western cars – he no longer sees much of the Ladas! He had just reviewed the product development plans of his Eastern European friends for 2011, which they proudly emailed him because it’s only 2010 – he has been pushing them to extend their planning horizon and to keep driving margins; and words like vision didn’t ring a bell before!)

We need to summon our collective character as a nation to attain competitive advantage – and overcome our dire economic straits?