The study, prepared by Orkestra, Basque Institute of Competitiveness, appreciates the present level of competitiveness achieved and identifies the sophistication and the internationalization of Basque companies as remaining tasks.

On Tuesday, December 18 took place on the campus of San Sebastian of the University of Deusto, the filing date of the first publication of Orkestra: "The Competitiveness Report of the Basque Country: towards a single proposal of value."

The report has been delivered by José Luis Larrea, President of ORKESTRA and Chairman of Ibermática; Jon Azua, Chairman of the Advisory Council of ORKESTRA and Executive Chairman of enovatinglab, sl And Alejandro Ruelas-Gossi, Director General of ORKESTRA.

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The first Competitiveness Report of the Basque Country is an approximation initial Orkestra toward a model that explains the state of competitiveness reached by the Basque Country and all of its stakeholders, as well as the windows of opportunity and lines of work and research future will facilitate the decision-making process of a new model of competitiveness for the Basque Country.

The alignment with the model of competitiveness of Basque Country is ordered around three key questions to which answers are offered: where we are, where we want to go and how to get.

In response to the first question, the report points out that in terms of per capita GDP, the trend since 1985 shows that the Basque Country is spectacular. Their level has risen by 2.2 in real terms between this year and 2006, and to be a 30% lower than the EU-15 in 1985, is now a 5% higher. Such positive developments in the Basque economy is the result of three factors: corporate, institutional and microeconomic policy. However, the results are less impressive when compared to the data of the Basque Country or US-sobre todo if we compare the data with those of other European regions. According to the database REGUE developed by Orkestra in collaboration with the IAIF, in 2004 the Basque Country was in the post 66 of a list of 146 European regions in terms of per capita income expressed in euro, while in terms of evolution in the period 1995-2004 positioning was better: the post 15. The report also highlights that while investment in R & D has increased more than 10 times since the early 80, placing the Basque Country above average investment in this area was done in the rest of Spain The results obtained have not responded to the magnitude of this investment. There is a wide gap between investment in R & D and the generation of patents, placing the Basque Country below the EU-15 and USA.

In response to the second question, the report stresses that the space to the Basque Country must address is one in which the employment and GDP grow, but the second does so at a higher rate than the first, so that productivity grows because it generates more value per employee. In other words, the competitiveness achieved so far will only be sustainable if the Basque country achieves transform an economy based on efficiency to an economy based on the production of ideas. Each sector will have to consider the pace and the nuances with which undertake the trip efficiencies sophistication.

To answer the third question the effort of reflection went to identify the unique and inimitable strengths on which to build the unique value proposition of the Basque Country, as well as to identify weaknesses that the Basque Country can not afford if aspires to compete in the economy of ideas. The report identifies three major strengths of the Basque Country: the competitive level, the plurality overlapping administrative and public-private; clusterización and spatial and industrial specialization.

For its part, the weaknesses that the Basque Country can not afford are linked to its system of innovation and related to the sophistication of the business and operational strategies. Based on the strengths and weaknesses of the Basque economy, Orkestra identifies four areas of knowledge to build their unique value proposition: Clusters, Regional Development and Innovation, Enterprise, Strategy and Welfare. Each of the areas of knowledge belongs to global networks of excellence bringing together the best business schools and research institutes that deal with the issue of competitiveness and its different aspects: Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard University, the network Microeconomics of Competitiveness (MOC), the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, the European Network for Industrial Policy (EUNIP), the Max Planck Institute for Economics, INSEAD, IESE, and CEIBS Shanghai ...

Conclusions of the Report

The main conclusion which emerges from the report is that still it can not be said that the definition of an offer unique value has been incorporated into the strategic most Basque companies, which in general terms "still running the same race than others "and learning the rules of the game marked by them. This is reflected in lower margins and lower profitability, according to the economic-financial analysis compared conducted at the Institute, presented Basque companies, especially small.

Improved profitability and growth potential of Basque companies goes through the identification, development and exploitation of the resources and abilities that make them unique. In many cases, the weaknesses detected in topics such as globalization and size and business groups, which arise as strategies to be more competitive, are more the result of not having found the differential value proposition that the cause of lack of competitiveness. The two paths to the economy of ideas: the sophistication and the internationalization of Basque companies, is a pending task.