The Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity interviewed more than 660 senior managers in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom last summer and divided the results into [image-nocss] operations, performance and people management categories. Overall, Canadian managers scored poorly on most operations questions, but did well in setting goals and managing personnel.
"Canada is not achieving its full prosperity potential," the report warned. "A key component of closing our prosperity gap is for Canada to broaden its approach to innovation. Strong management practices are a critical contributor to more innovation."
The institute, a nonprofit organization that serves as the research arm for the Ontario government's task force on competitiveness, recommended governments pay more attention to post-secondary business education and research and encouraged global expansion for retailers.
"Better-educated managers produce better performance," Roger Martin, chairman of the institute, said in the report. "We also find that large-scale, multinational retailers are better managed than those focused only on their home market."
Martin, who is also the dean of the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management, said Canada's retailers are lagging behind manufacturers. The country has only produced one retail global leader, but 23 leaders in manufacturing, he said.
He named Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. as the country's one true global retail success storya business in the top five in its market segment. The company, which operates a massive network of convenience stores and gas bars across North America, has done a good job of implementing the "lean retailing" model that the institute advocates.
Lean retailing is a strategy that aims to eliminate waste and simplify work by getting rid of excess inventory, bottlenecks in the supply chain and wait times for employees.
"Behind the counters of its large, bright and modern convenience stores is a synchronized series of effective management structures and strategies," the report said. "From its early days of growth, [Couche-Tard] had important strengths in managing a decentralized environment, streamlining decision-making processes and providing instructors to teach their employees customer service relations, management and merchandising."
Martin did acknowledge that there is a bit of a "virtuous circle" at work under the global expansion theory, however. "Firms with global aspirations need effective management to expand, and expanding firms attract better managers," he said.
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