Assessing Competitiveness

How Do You Choose To Compete?

At the beginning of the assessment, the manufacturer is asked to consider how they choose to compete using the recognised Competitiveness Themes of:

• Quality
• Cost
• Delivery
• Flexibility
• Product & Technology
• Customer experience

‘How you choose to compete’ is an apparently simple question that is surprisingly difficult to answer. Alongside this, the assessment seeks to benchmark the company’s relationship with its customers by engaging with:

• A sponsoring customer
• Other customers nominated by the manufacturer at start of the assessment

The Customer input is collated in a Customer Competitiveness View that is derived from an on-site, evidence based assessment.

Following a Company Capability Assessment, Customer Competiveness View and Company Revenue Profile, NMCL develops a Programme Pack that is used to aid the decision whether to commit investment.

Following any investment, the NMCL assessment is undertaken again paying particular attention to whether the company has won additional business.

Both assessments are evidence based, conducted on-site through an app based tool and undertaken by trained, examined and licensed assessors.

Assessment Process

The NMCL assessment looks at a series of mutually supportive perspectives on the business.

1. Company Competitiveness Pre-review

The Company Competitiveness View looks at the following Competitiveness Themes of:

• Quality
• Cost
• Delivery
• Flexibility
• Product & Technology
• Customer experience

The company is then asked to say how they choose to compete.

2. Company Capability Assessment

Consists of a series of questions examining the capabilities of the company. Numerical scoring in the assessment is viewed against themes chosen in the Company Competitiveness View and where the company is in its growth journey. The result is an assessment that recognises what is really important to the company at that particular stage.

3. Customer Competitiveness Benchmarking

What makes a company competitive is best seen from the point of view of the customer. Evidence based customer input is gathered through a supervised and quality assured process and is consolidated to provide the company with an accurate customer perspective on competitiveness. This gives a view rise on the Competitiveness Themes that the company must improve in order win more orders.

4. Company Competitiveness Prioritisation

Within the Company Competitiveness View the company is asked how it chooses to compete, whilst the Customer Competitiveness View consolidates the customer feedback. It may be that these two views are entirely aligned. Where alignment is not achieved (and this is the most likely outcome) the company is asked to review how it chooses to compete in the light of its customer’s response. In this way, the view of the customer is fully reflected in the company’s aspirations.

5. Company Revenue Profile

The growth of the business is assessed to establish growth from current customers and the relative size of these vs. total revenue, growth through new customers or markets and export growth.