Design of a Sustainable Competitiveness Evaluation and Execution System (SuCEES)

Abstract

To be competitive is the major reason why companies continuously improve their performance and innovate their processes, products and services. The recent decades revealed an increase number of companies that felt into bankruptcy, independently of their size, sector or market status. In fact, this is a phenomenon, which have been a concern among big companies and even start-ups. It is understood that to survive and to succeed, business leaders need to be aware about trends to be able to visioning future competitiveness environments, and to anticipate actions to respond to each daily challenges. In this context, the difference between successful or failed strategies lies on knowing, not only the trends, but also the actual performance of the company and its competitive strength. To do so, strategic planning and evaluation frameworks and models should be used in a systematic and integrated way, based on reliable data and appropriate indicators, to define suitable and timeless strategies, objectives and goals. However, this is not enough, one of the major failure modes of strategic planning is companies’ inability to implement proper actions to achieve those goals, fact known as the “execution gap”. The aim of this research is to contribute to the improvement of companies’ strategic planning process and, consequently, to boost their competitiveness and to reduce their exposure to bankruptcy. With this purpose, SuCEES (Sustainable Competitiveness Evaluation and Execution System) was designed, which is an integrated system founded on an alternative definition of sustainable competitiveness based on resilience, innovation and sustainability concepts. Composed by evaluation and execution frameworks it: i) allows the measurement of companies’ competitiveness positioning, competitive advantage and competitiveness risk, by scoring seven competitiveness drivers, and; ii) supports the definition of companies’ strategic objectives, their translation into operational targets and actions needed, as well as the achievement of results, through monitoring and control tools. SuCEES was validated by the participation of a pool of experts and through two case studies, conducted in companies Electrolux Poland and Visteon Portugal.