Raising the creativity of advertising agencies and commercial communication companies requires a clear understanding of the forces that can improve our competitiveness, so hopefully some key players in the market who are visibly unaware of them will read these paragraphs. And I am referring to Michael Porter’s thinking and competitiveness, in a brutal condensation relevant to our creative world.
If I want my company to be more competitive, I need my country to be more competitive every day. It is absurd, short-sighted and even stupid to think that I will achieve sustainable success in the world if I do not start from a strong internal market of the highest level. Therefore, to ignore local competition is to sentence one’s own company to a loss of competitiveness. A lucky break or two can happen to anyone. Sustaining success over time requires understanding that the competitive level of the local market is essential.
It is also vital to understand that we need a demanding local consumer. Therefore, in order to raise the competitive level of our companies, it is urgent that we inject people with more fun, entertaining and surprising creativity, so that they will appreciate it more every day, expect it and eventually even demand it. Consumers must discover that they do not have to resign themselves to boring or strident commercial breaks, or to invasion of their screen with banners and pop-ups, or just to the retail pages we see every day. For this reason, the day-to-day creativity in the country has to rise, or we will never grow if the bet is only on gimmicks or agency initiatives for festivals.
We cannot think that we are going to raise the creative talent of our companies if we do not celebrate creativity. What is celebrated is repeated, and for this reason, in an extreme simplification and just to make a point relevant to the moment, creative festivals are very important. And in the sum of these paragraphs of arguments, to attempt brevity on a subject that requires much more time and space, not competing in creative festivals is not an option, but a condition of the business itself, although obviously reserved solely and exclusively for the winners. Those who do not compete are relegated to the second division or will soon be among the losers. Thus, the Pregonero has been promoting the country’s creativity and competitiveness for almost 30 years. And for the past 8 years, the Volcano has also been boosting our creativity. Local awards are indispensable, and the more relevant the better.
Today it is very easy to share ideas and concepts. And for this reason, from what I found I particularly liked the following summary in another blog, although certainly much more academic than mine (mine is not academic at all). I leave you here with Michael Porter’s competitiveness proposal in the words of Carmen García Pelayo.
Competitiveness should be understood as the ability of an organization, whether public or private, for-profit or not, to obtain and maintain comparative advantages that allow it to attain, sustain and improve a certain position in the socioeconomic environment. The term competitiveness is widely used in business circles, having an impact on the way of planning and developing any business initiative, which obviously leads to an evolution in the business and entrepreneur model.
The comparative or competitive advantage of a company would be in its ability, resources, knowledge and attributes, etc., which it has, and which its competitors lack or have to a lesser extent, making it possible to obtain higher returns than those of the former. The concept of competitiveness makes us think of the idea of “excellence”, with characteristics of efficiency and effectiveness of the organization.
Competitive companies are those capable of continuously offering products and services with attributes appreciated by their customers. We call this set of characteristics that distinguish a company’s product from its competitors competitive advantages. The only thing that is certain about competitive advantages is their dynamism; markets can change their demands or the company’s technology can be displaced by those of its competitors. If a company does not invest in maintaining and renewing them, sooner or later it will be doomed to lose them.
There are two categories of competitive advantages: cost advantages and value-added advantages. Cost advantages are associated with the ability to offer customers a product at minimum cost. Value competitive advantages, on the other hand, are based on offering a product or service with unique attributes, discernible to customers, that distinguish a competitor from others (Julian Villalba).
Michael Porter stated that competitiveness is determined by productivity, defined as the value of the product generated by a unit of labor or capital. To speak of competitiveness, Porter continues, it would be necessary to go to the company and the sector, and identify the factors that determine whether companies generate added value and whether this value is sold in the market, and whether these factors are really sustainable in the medium and long term.
Being competitive today means having special characteristics that make us be chosen within a group of companies that are in the same market seeking to be selected. It is to differentiate ourselves by our quality, by our skills, by our qualities, by our ability to captivate, to seduce, to serve and amaze our customers, whether internal or external, with our goods and services, which would translate into a wealth generator(Michael Porter, “Competitive Advantages”).
Likewise, Michael Porter establishes four factors that can be determinant in competitiveness:
1. The country’s endowment, in terms of quantity and quality of the basic productive factors (labor force, natural resources, capital and infrastructure), as well as the specialized skills, knowledge and technologies that determine its capacity to generate and assimilate innovations.
2. The nature of Domestic Demand in relation to the supply of the national productive apparatus; in particular, it is relevant the presence of demanding customers that pressure suppliers with their demands for innovative items and that anticipate their needs.
3. The existence of a productive structure made up of companies of different sizes, but efficient on an international scale, horizontally and vertically related, that encourages competitiveness through a specialized internal supply of inputs, technologies and skills to support a process of innovation that can be generalized along productive chains.
4. The prevailing conditions in the country in terms of the creation, organization and management of companies, as well as competition, mainly if it is fueled or inhibited by regulations and cultural attitudes towards innovation, profit and risk.
In addition,
– Competitiveness means sustainable profit for your business.
– It is the result of constant quality improvement and innovation.
– As we have mentioned before, competitiveness is strongly related to productivity: to be productive, Tourist Attractions, Capital Investments and Human Resources have to be fully integrated, as they are of equal importance.
– The necessary stimulation for a country, a national or international company to be more competitive is the result of a policy promoted by the State that produces the conditions to provide the necessary stability to grow, requiring the construction of a strong civil State, capable of generating community, cooperation and responsibility. (Carmen García Pelayo).