A European nation needed to assess its economic competitiveness. The port cluster was identified as an area of strategic importance. It faced strong competition from neighboring ports, and had trouble achieving consensus among the diverse constituents whose support was needed to successfully compete. The goal was to foster cooperation, and to develop a long term, actionable vision.

What We Did

Monitor was asked to conduct an overall assessment. The Monitor team performed a strategy study aimed at improving competitive performance. It examined the current situation, developed positioning options, evaluated tradeoffs, and identified best choices for long term success. Analytics included assessments of the business environment, international benchmarking, and competitor analysis.

This effort was very process intensive, bringing together a number of constituencies (and companies), many of which were often antagonistic. The Monitor team developed and coordinated a process to promote dialogue among these constituencies, and to reach consensus on the strategic vision.

The team recommended that the client should focus on fostering port industries rather than trying to compete in the international container business.

Results

The result of this project was the creation of five action task forces dedicated to fix key weaknesses of the port. These task forces consisted of organizations and companies that traditionally had not worked together, and enabled the client to make progress on a number of key issues.