Global competitiveness of BRICS and Canada: implications for business

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The publication of this paper gives me great pleasure with the collaboration of a co-author who is an expert in economics. This paper is unique as it approaches global competitiveness data, the domain of economists, from the perspective of a marketer. I am thankful to the Transnational Corporations Review for recognizing the value of this research to help Canadian businesses identify market opportunities with other nations, in this case the BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Trading between nations largely depends on trade missions, personal connections and immigrant entrepreneurship. While these efforts are commendable and should continue, how else can we capture opportunities that may exist but not identified? How can we be sure that we have a comprehensive framework to analyze and identify business opportunities between nations? Economists and other research groups tend to study the BRICS focused on issues such as poverty reduction, pollution and human rights to propose policy. Global competitiveness data has also been used by ruling parties to garner votes or by opposition to attack the government. If nations were to analyze the data to identify business opportunities, they would advance and enhance their global competitiveness. Business leaders who study global competitiveness data could advocate policies to expand global markets, highlighting indicators that need improvement to attract investors and build a competitive advantage. For example, this research reveals Canada’s strengths over the BRICS and thus, Canada can market products and services to the BRICS related to infrastructure, education, financial market sophistication, labour market efficiency, technology and business sophistication.

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