Does business need to adjust its agenda?

• Author: de Grandpre, A. Jean
• Position: Confronting business problems - Management Strategy

Does business need to adjust its agenda?

What is the business agenda for the 1990s in Canada and the United States? We know it will be a busy agenda in both countries, complete with the ticking time bomb of growing national debts. And we don't need a clear crystal ball to see a wide range of other issues.

My experience during the past year strengthens my belief that business must act in terms of both a continental and a world agenda. That experience was gained as chairman of the federally appointed committee studying the implications of Canada's Free Trade Agreement with the U.S.

If we move quickly, the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) can become a giant step toward global liberalization of trade. Economic realities are driving political decisions toward a more open international market structure. As financial executives, you must be part of that outward push. Your advice and counsel is needed near that cutting edge that separates profit from loss. This is not the time to shy away from the competitive challenge.

What are some of the major problems business will have to tackle?

* The first item on the agenda is globalization. Globalization may be a buzzword, but it describes what is happening in the marketplace.

The international economy now demands global standards for quality, for pricing, for service, for design, and for on-time delivery. It also demands leaders who think in global terms.

Where do North American firms with technological, organizational, and marketing strengths fit in this one-world marketplace? The FTA between Canada and the U.S. provides one opportunity. If companies on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border act swiftly, they can benefit from the positive effects of the FTA. But companies in both our countries can - indeed, must - also become powerful competitors in Europe and Asia.

The FTA more than opens the continental market - it is the stepping stone to the world market. It will require the courage of entrepreneurial risk-taking on both sides of the border, of course, to compete internationally. But corporate size now has to be measured in a global rather than a national context. And there isn't any time to waste.

Why the hurry? Because other trading blocks are forming. A born-again western Europe has invented Project 1992. It is creating a market within the community larger than Japan and the U.S. And Communist Europe has produced "perestroika." The two markets of Europe appear destined to meet in an economic tug of peace.

Are we ready for this globalization of the marketplace? * Second among the problems is that of education - the education of our most valuable resource, our young people, the workforce.

What problem, you say? Don't we live on a continent where education is universally available? Yes, we do. But despite our accessible education system in both countries, about one of every four young adults over 18 years of age is functionally illiterate.

One in four of our young people across this rich land is held back by the inability to read, to write, or to compute well enough to perform the basic tasks required on most jobs. Skilled jobs are going begging in some 300 occupations due to the lack...