Competitiveness

Competitiveness is key to any business success. One of the exciting aspects of having a service business is that you can potentially sell your services anywhere in the world as long as you keep in mind the key elements for competitiveness. The following three articles were written for small service companies on the Sunshine Coast – a peninsula off the coast of Vancouver, Canada, that is accessible only by ferry and air and that has a total population of approximately 30,000 – to help clarify how to be successful despite having a small local market:

  1. Being selected
  2. Providing quality service
  3. Getting positive word-of-mouth

An important component of being competitive is ensuring the consistent quality of the service you provide. The principles of the international quality standard ISO 9000:2000 can help with that, whether or not a firm choosing to become registered. In addition to years of experience training ISO 9000 auditors, Dr. Riddle has written the following handbook, published by the International Trade Centre UNCTAD/WTO in Geneva: