Chief Executives Lay Out U.S. Competitiveness Roadmap

WASHINGTON—A group of corporate, university and labor chief executives are calling for a renewed commitment to the future prosperity of all Americans through enhanced competitiveness in the global economy. The group gathered in Washington during a policy forum sponsored by the Council on Competitiveness and issued a set of five recommendations that will be distributed to all of the presidential candidates.

The recommendations, called Five for the Future, are grounded in data that shows the United States remains the global economic engine amidst a radically changing economic landscape. The recommendations address the changing economic landscape and outline a new framework to help the United States sustain a competitive edge.

“Ensuring the future prosperity of all Americans is at the heart of competitiveness,” said Deborah L. Wince-Smith, president of the Council on Competitiveness. “The United States must seriously reassess national and global economic factors to make sure we are on a trajectory of success.”

Success, according to Five for the Future, will be achieved by innovation in five specific areas: science and technology; energy security; education; economic resilience; and global engagement.

First, the United States must challenge the frontiers of science and technology. Similar to the nation’s response to the launch of the Soviet Sputnik program in 1957, the United States must redouble its efforts to create new knowledge and technology. This knowledge and technology will be critical to addressing the major challenges facing humanity in the 21st century.

Second, renewing access to secure and sustainable energy is one of those challenges, and the private sector plays an essential part in this process. Companies have set ambitious goals to diversify the energy they consume and to increase energy efficiency. These companies and the decisions their leaders make will have a major impact on the national energy debate.

“We must ensure that our best companies, experts and inventors have the freedom, flexibility and resources to develop and deploy more energy, more cleanly and from sources here and abroad,” said James Owens, CEO of Caterpillar, and co-chair of a new Council on Competitiveness initiative on Energy Security, Innovation and Sustainability.

Third, future American prosperity depends on achieving advantage with creative and cutting-edge talent. Unlike in the past, conceptual thinking and knowledge will trump industrial-age efficiency and traditional skills.

“As our economy globalizes and the marketplace for innovation flattens, many of our products and services become commodities and we find ourselves competing with other countries in a global economic race,” said Lucinda Sanders, CEO of the National Center for Women and Information Technology. “What will differentiate U.S. performance and lead to high-value economic activity for our nation? Our diverse workforce!”

The Five for the Future recommendations call for a multidisciplinary focus on education and workforce development. To that end, the Council on Competitiveness and Economic Development Administration of the Department of Commerce announced a new workforce development initiative today. The new effort will develop practical strategies and tools to help regions better position American workers for global competition.

Fourth, global competitiveness requires resiliency. It is not sufficient to simply secure facilities and people because the number and complexity of threats has grown exponentially. Resiliency, on the other hand, recognizes these shifts and pushes planning for risk throughout an enterprise.

“Resilience must be baked into the DNA of a company, a university or a governmental organization,” said Chad Holliday, chairman and CEO of DuPont, and chairman of the Council on Competitiveness. “And when you bake it in with solid, powerful processes, training programs and agile systems, you are indeed putting together a capability to respond to whatever disruption might come your way.”

Finally, Five for the Future highlights the need to engage fully in the global economy. Many U.S. firms have already moved in this direction and are reaping the benefit of global enterprise-but the implications of global engagement are not all positive. The impact of growing trade deficits, outsourcing of jobs and growing income inequality must be addressed proactively and creatively.

Collaboration and meaningful dialogue between the United States and other countries on issues such as education, investment and innovation, is essential to competitiveness. Competitiveness, unlike in the past, is all about collaboration. “If globalization is the new playing field, then innovation is the way you win the game - whether that game is in business, geopolitics, academia or technology,” said Sam Palmisano, the chairman, president and CEO of IBM. “I firmly believe that this two-sided coin of innovation and global integration can be an empowering and progressive force for every community and individual on the planet.”

Five for the Future is being issued in an effort to keep a national focus on innovation, especially in anticipation of the 2008 presidential and congressional elections. In 2004, the Council on Competitiveness produced Innovate America, a strategy to position innovation as the key to economic growth and success. As a result, President George W. Bush introduced the American Competitiveness Initiative during his 2006 State of the Union address. This past summer, Congress passed and the president signed the America COMPETES Act, which drew heavily on the work of the National Innovation Initiative.

Five for the Future was released during the annual meeting of the Council on Competitiveness—the only group of corporate CEOs, university presidents and labor leaders committed to the future prosperity of all Americans and enhanced U.S. competitiveness in the global economy. The annual meeting was sponsored by Ab Initio; California Institute of Technology; Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu; DuPont; Georgia Institute of Technology; IBM Corporation; and The University of Akron.