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Regional Advantage: How NZ enterprises convert a region's distinctive qualities to international advantage

Key points

• Scale and internationalisation are the two single biggest factors that determine the success of the company.
• There is not a one size fits all rule of thumb - every cluster that has been studied as part of the wider project is different.
• Regions need to keep the big firms in place and keep the feeder firms around them. This could be through distinctive skills in the local labour market or through simple social measures (e.g. quality of life).
• Your EDA can be used to enable the region to exploit its advantage.
• In the current global economy there is not a great deal of difference between the leaders and those who follow.
• The success of a firm is not just about the industry, it's about the support infrastructure as well, e.g. the suppliers.
• The crucial element to a cluster is depth (of the relationships and trust), not numbers.
• Activities that build trust and where there is a common goal can be a tool for deepening the relationships, these activities can lead to the "clump" or group of related firms developing into a cluster, with some real linkages being established, and a sense of trust and community beginning to grow.
• There are only a few larger exporting companies, but the components supplied by the feeder companies are only exported as part of a final product. These parts are crucial though (e.g. plastics injection modelling).