Strategies for Competitive Advantage and Employment Creation in Kuwait

This article discusses the strategies that can enhance the capacity of firms in Kuwait to create more employment and attain competitive advantage. It covers the diamond model for competitive advantage, policies for technological advancement, demand condition, factor advantage, and related supporting industries. The article also explores strategies for employment creation, such as promoting entrepreneurship, collaborating with training institutions, and employing trainees after completing attachments.

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Business Strategy
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Business Strategy
Part one
Strategies with each of the four determinants of national advantage will attract
multinational corporations (MNC) and protect domestic firms in Kuwait
The diamond model for the competitive advantage nations offers a concept that can assist
one to understand the competitive ability of a country in global competition. The model
comprises of four factors for competitive advantage: firm strategy, demand condition, related
support industries, and factor conditions (Mohan, 2017, P. 149) For a country like Kuwait, there
are various policies that it can put in place to strengthen its national competitive advantage in
order to attract multinational corporations (MNCs) and protect domestic firms in the country.
The first policy is ensuring the country is focused and support technological advancement
and innovation. According to Rajesh (2017, P. 58), Kuwait is a developing country and has been
undergoing a process of technological transformation for almost three decades. This means the
country needs to put more efforts to ensure it becomes a country that is known for technological
advancements and innovation in order to attract as many multinational corporations as possible
and also to make its local firms thrive.
According to diamond’s view concerning organizational strategy, firm structure, and
rivalry, direct competition is among the major factors that makes organizations to strive for
productivity and innovation. Sola (2017, P. 48) affirms that the world is dominated by dynamic
conditions that need to be observed in order to make a country attain a competitive advantage.
For Kuwait to make this dynamic conditions to be attractive to the multinational corporation, it
should be technologically advanced because, in the recent decade, most firms seek to operate in

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countries that strive to do what others have not done in terms of technology. Direct competition
can also be addressed through innovation because invention of new things plays a significant role
in attracting investors to conduct businesses in a particular country.
The other policy which Kuwait should consider is ensuring there is high demand level in
its consmuers. According to Mense-Petermann (2015, P. 267), companies like conducting
businesses in countries where the level of demand for the products or services that they produce
is high. Kuwait can improve demand by regulating its local population size, and also by
addressing cultural and religious beliefs that makes people not to consume some products or
services.
One of the four elements of Porter's diamond model for the competitive advantage
nations is the demand condition, which states that the more demanding the consumers in a
particular country, the greater the pressure facing companies to continuously improve their
competitiveness through producing goods or services that satisfy customer needs (Bhawsar &
Chattopadhyay, 2015, P. 668). This means demand is not only attractive to multinational
corporations to conduct businesses in a particular country but also a major factor that makes the
local firms to consider attaining a competitive advantage through producing products or services
that meet customer expectations.
Rajesh (2017, P. 60) argues that demand promises business success because it keeps
goods and services moving. This implies that if Kuwait implements strategies that will increase
the level of demand for as many products and services as possible, its local firms will thrive, and
more multinational companies will view the country as one of the most suitable for conducting
businesses.

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To remain competitive, this country must ensure the demand conditions such as market
size, home demand, market growth, and sophistication are favorable. According to Rajib (2010,
P. 92), these factors companies to have a reason for running businesses in a particular country
because they make them to always strive to meet the consumer needs. For instance, sophisticated
home market buyers will always pressure companies to innovate faster and to come up with
more advanced goods or services than those of the foreign competitors.
The other policy that Kuwait can use to attain a competitive advantage is through creating
a factor advantage by ensuring all factors of production are present. According to Gupta (2015,
P. 105), factors of production comprise of skilled labor, capital, and infrastructure. According to
the porter’s diamond key elements the factor conditions, the factors of production in a country
are formed not inherited. According to his view, among the key factors of production are skilled
labor, infrastructure, and capital. This implies that for Kuwait to attain a competitive advantage,
it must ensure these factors are present. One of the ways of having skilled and sufficient labor is
encouraging education through building many training institutions and ensuring there is a proper
curriculum that provides good training. The government can also ensure there is skilled labor by
ensuring education is affordable to all people through charging reasonable fees.
The government can ensure the presence of capital through allowing easy access to
finances, like for example, providing loans to entrepreneurs, implementing policies that make
banks and other financial institutions to charge reasonable interest rates and so forth. One way of
ensuring there is infrastructure is allocating some of the lands for industrial development, or
selling lands intended for building industries at reasonable prices. It is also fundamental to
ensure there are specialized factors that involve heavy, and sustained investment. According to

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Donatella (2015, P. 51), specialized factors are challenging to duplicate, and therefore lead to
competitive advantage because if other firms find it hard to duplicate them, it means they are
valuable.
According to the porter’s diamond model for the competitive advantage of nations,
related supporting industries is also a key factor that can make a country to favor the success of
businesses. This is because having companies that share some features encourage the exchange
of information. It also makes competition to exist, hence leading to the production of high-
quality products and strive to satisfy consumer needs.
According to the porter’s diamond model, the government acts as a catalyst and also as a
challenger (Bhawsar & Chattopadhyay, 2015, P. 675). For this reason, the Kuwait government
should encourage an environment that allows the related industries to share information, and
access some of the things that can make their businesses to prosper.
If the government encourages related and supporting industries, firms will produce inputs
that are crucial for innovation and internationalization. These firms will also provide cost-
effective inputs, and strive to participate in the upgrading process, hence making other
organizations in the chain to innovate. According to Sola (2017, P. 52), innovation is one of the
key factors that favor business success because it enables companies to come up with better ways
of doing things, hence reducing costs. It also assists in developing goods and services that meet
customer expectations. When a country has related and supporting industries, multinational
companies target expanding to these countries because of the guaranteed success of their
business.

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Part two
Strategies that can enhance the capacity of firms in Kuwait to create more employment
According to Norbert (2013, P. 78), Kuwait is among the countries that have been
affected by the issue of unemployment for many years. There are various strategies that
organizations can use to create more employment. One of these strategies is ensuring there is a
design for the future. This is because, with the rate of current technological and economic
disruptions, jobs and skills interventions will only bear positive results if firms in this country
strive to design them with a proactive, long-term approach instead of one which is reactive or
based on past successes. For instance, internship programs which allow the youth to be placed in
the traditional jobs will remain useless if those job categories will continue becoming obsolete
within a period of five years. Instead, more sense can be built if the internship programs are
created for high-growth occupations.
Businesses can also aid in addressing the issue of unemployment in this country by
promoting entrepreneurship through supporting startups and smaller enterprises. This is one of
the most effective ways of addressing this issue because when a company supports one person to
start a business, that person will create employment for other people in need of jobs. Companies
can support entrepreneurs in various ways (Paulsen, 2017, P. 109). For instance, it can provide
capital for startups, officer free advice concerning how to manage a successful business and so
forth.
The other strategy which companies can use to address the issue of unemployment in this
country is collaborating with training institutions in order to help them in providing the skills that
they require in the world of work, and also to enhance lifelong learning. According to Paulsen

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(2017, P. 110), one of the factors that have caused a high level of unemployment in Kuwait is
having courses that do not match the current needs in the job market. Partnering with training
institutions will make them train the young people in a manner which can make them attain the
required skills, hence preventing them from wasting a lot of time without jobs. Porcaro (2013, P.
192) affirms that job seekers with outstanding skills get jobs without challenges because they
have what can impress employers to hire.
According to Lu (2017, P. 92), employing trainees after completing attachments is one of
the strategies which firms can use to minimize the level of unemployment in this country. In
most cases, some of the higher learning students remain jobless even after attending attachments
and attaining skills from some of the companies that they join for attachment. If the companies
implement policies that will make them absorb these students, the issue of joblessness will
reduce. The companies can use these students to replace those who resign or retire instead of
leaving them to remain unemployed even after giving them practical skills through internship
programs.

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References
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Gupta, R. K. (2015). Process Based Model of Business Excellence to Achieve World Class
status. FIIB Business Review. 2(2), 98-119.
Lu, C. (2017). Optimal Government Policies Related to Unemployment. Public Finance Review,
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Rajesh, B. M. (2017). Why business Model Innovation is the New Competitive Advantage. IUP
journals of Business Strategy. 14(1), 54-69.

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Rajib, S. S. (2010). National Competitiveness and Perception of corruption. Advances in
competitiveness Research, 18(1-2), 87-112.
Sola, J. D. (2017). International Market Entry Decisions: The Role of Local Market Factors.
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