It may be useful to consider some local business strategy and public policy groupings that are generally used to facilitate capability development in any industry sector. In some of sector these strategies are probably already in operation to some extent or another.

We suggest that the strategies generally fall into three categories:

Grow Your Own;
Attract External Investment; and
Link to Another System.

Grow Your Own

An explicit and deliberate community - wide policy and commitment to developing firms and institutions from scratch. The Terms of Reference of this engagement refer to the intent to build capacity from within your area. This would in fact be a Grow Your Own strategy.

The benefits of this policy would be to maximize global market opportunities in the long run and allow entrepreneurs the opportunity to develop the widest range of products and services that they see fit. The drawbacks to this option are the currently limited number of entrepreneurial firms and units. This condition would constrain results from this option in the short term (that is, it would be a long - term commitment), and the lack of venture financing. These factors also have the effect of raising the costs of this option.

Attract External Investment

A deliberate community-based effort to attract external investment into your business from a large firm or firms, with an international approach.

An example would be to attract a firm that would act as a Systems Integrator for the whole supply, that is, a firm acting at the top layer of our macro model for the value-added supply chain.

Such a firm could act to provide relatively large-scale production facilities within the community. It would also integrate effectively the local supply capabilities by providing a substantial marketing capability for local firms as well as the global, and a supporting and encouraging function for new product development within the community.

The benefits of this policy would be to build-up rapidly the total supply capability within the community, almost certainly at lower cost than the Grow Your Own option. Moreover, the supply system could achieve much closer integration and reduction of economic leakage.

Link to Another System

A community - wide choice to establish links between the emerging global supply capabilities and a larger, more established system. An illustration of this approach might be linking the other global oil and gas industry.

The benefits of this option are its low cost and relatively rapid implementation. The drawbacks to this option are that both entrepreneurs and research institutions would find their options for research and product development constrained. They would be accepting the customer needs and research priorities of another location or industrial sector.

These three options are not mutually exclusive for the community as a whole. Moreover, they are not even mutually exclusive within any given project. All three could, and probably are, be used effectively by your business.