Get it Done!

Can You Execute?

Welcome to the global marketplace, a fiercely competitive arena where international companies jockey for position like skaters racing around a roller derby track. Companies that don't execute successfully and that can't keep up with the blistering pace are going to be out of the game fast. Indeed, your company must be able to deliver at every single node of the complex "global supply chain," whether at a factory in Shanghai, a broker in Manila, a call center in New Delhi or a retail store in Detroit. What constitutes efficient execution today? A 2004 Conference Board survey states that nearly 90% of more than 500 international business leaders designated "speed, flexibility and adaptability to uncertainty" as primary corporate goals. In another survey, executives from 250 U.S. and E.U. companies stated that execution - being able to "react quickly to changing business opportunities, models, technologies and processes" - is a vital, if nearly quixotic, goal.

So what, you might say: Your company doesn't sell globally. Nonetheless, this affects you. As influential New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman writes, "the world is flat," meaning that sooner...