Increase your innovation

The adage “going global begins at home” is more important than ever today. The domestic market can be used to test the demand for your product or service as well as your value proposition before going beyond the Canadian border.

In the case of a trading nation like Canada, breaking down tariff and non-tariff barriers through free trade agreements (FTAs) is opening up new doors of opportunity for Canadian companies. At the same time, it increases competition.

So what’s key to success in the global economy, then? Innovation.

Understanding the language, cultural sensitives, political nuances as well as developing key partnerships are crucial before entering a new market. You are not just competing with companies in your backyard, you are competing with businesses from around the world including domestic companies in that market that have a solid grasp of how that it works. Furthermore, it’s likely you will face some unforeseen challenges when trying to go global.

Companies that possess the necessary agility to switch gears, to be better than their competitors when challenges arise or when customer demands change, will have the best chance of success.

One of the key differentiators of innovators is the ability to harness market trends, rather than react to them. Studying the latest trends in the market and figuring out where you can carve a niche and be successful in the future, can give you a competitive advantage in the global marketplace.

Looking at emerging trends is part of Bob Berger’s business mantra. The president of MW Canada, a vertically integrated textile mill located in Cambridge, Ont. travels the globe every other year to assess the latest trends in the industry and to identify gaps that his company can fill in those markets in an effort to to stay ahead of the competition.

“I go to see what they (companies in the industry) are making, and what they’re really good at and I then can focus clearly on doing the things they are not good at,” he explains. “Sometimes there will be something in production that’s hot and they can make a ton of it very quickly in China or elsewhere and that will fill the marketplace, but it’ll be history in two years and you don’t even try to compete. You have to understand your capabilities, their capabilities and where you fit in.”

For Ottawa’s Ross Video, a leading global end-to-end video solutions provider, its business strategy of having sales and marketing grow in harmony with R&D has been crucial to its international success.

Ross’ solution to this challenge is to expand the core functionalities of each of the products. “We’ve never done one-offs,” adds Ross, an engineer by trade. “We just enhanced the capabilities of the products to have more and more massive appeal and you can’t do that without having sales people on the ground feeding that information back to the engineers.”