Business leaders stress need for U.S. competitiveness

Business leaders gathered last weekend to lend their experience to students at the Wharton Mangement Club's fifth annual conference entitled "U.S. Competitiveness: Strategies for Our Future." The conference's keynote speaker, John Rollins, managing partner of Andersen Consulting and a Wharton alumnus, called on American business leaders to meet the challenges of the next decade and to resist the temptation to rest on the laurels of past achievements. Rollins said less than half of the top ten leaders in the airline, global commercial banking, computer hardware and discount retailing industries in 1980 remained on the leader board just ten years later. "Previous success in yesterday's world is no guarantee of future success and that also is the context for U.S. competitiveness in the business world," said Rollins. Using examples of innovative companies such as Land's End, a popular retailer that doesn't have an actual store, and NASDAQ, an electronic stock exchange which lacks a physical trading floor, Rollins emphasized that "the place of event is becoming less important." "The strategy of dominating the place of event to ensure customer loyalty is fundamentally flawed," Rollins said. Rollins' concept of "business networking" -- the rapid transfer of information via computer and telecommunications -- is an example of the idea that business in today's world can be done anywhere at any time. Following Rollins' address, the remaining speakers on the panel explained their perspectives on American competitiveness. James Buckley, a vice president at Apple Computer Inc., spoke about flexibility. He cited the computer industry as an example of a market which changes so quickly with the advent of new technologies and where "speed to market is imperative." "If you're not flexible to what your customers want, you could run into trouble," Buckley said. Stanley Laskowski, an administrator with the Environmental Protection Agency, echoed a Clinton-Gore campaign theme, saying that business and the environment are not incompatible. Tim Garrett, a vice president with Honda of America, stressed the importance of America's involvement in a global economy, asserting that "being the best in the U.S. isn't good enough anymore." Students said they found the conference to be very informative and agreed with the ideas and suggestions made by the panelists. "I thought an important point made was stressing the role of the American worker," said Engineering freshman Wesley Gaus. "Every single component in the business needs to work in order to be competitive." Other students found that the insights offered by the panelists would help them when they entered the business world. Wharton freshman Sean Nevins said "the conference gave me a good idea of how today's employers view the competitiveness of the U.S." "They told us first hand what we're going to be up against when we go into the work force," Nevins added.