Daily Archives: May 4, 2012

the doctor’s Top 10 Mega Regions for Supply Management COEs (Where Should Your Supply Management Organization be Located? Part IV)

Our first post in this series began the discussion of where a better-than-average Supply Management (SM) organization on the path to becoming a world-class Supply Management organization should locate its new Centre of Excellence (COE) for its new centre-led Supply Management organization. We discussed the traditional factors of customer proximity, supplier proximity, business incentives, infrastructure, and the local talent pool and ended up demonstrating that the only thing that really matters in the end is the local talent pool. (This is because it is the people, not the process or the technology, that ultimately identify and drive the results.) Our second post discussed what type of talent you were looking for and where they were likely to be found. We concluded that you were definitely restricted to major urban areas, but did not identify which particular urban areas are likely to contain the talent your organization needs. Then, in our last post, where we dived into the findings of Professor Richard Florida, as chronicled in Who’s Your City, we illustrated that your new Supply Management COE should be in one of the top 40 mega regions, and a mega region with a strong innovation focus and a lot of open minded talent. We then indicated that, if you intended to be North America based, that you should be focussing on one of the following five mega-regions: the Boston-New York-Washington (D.C.) corridor in the Northeast; Miami and southern Florida in the Southeast; the Houston, Dallas, and Austin triangle in Texas; the San Francisco Bay Area down to LA on the West Coast; and the Portland-Seattle-Vancouver corridor on the West Coast. But kind of left you hanging if you were looking for a global SM COE outside of North America.

So, today, the doctor brings you his top 10 Mega Regions for Supply Management COEs, culled from the list of the 40 Mega Regions based upon North America data, cultural analysis, and emerging or current trends.

Rank Mega-Region Economic Clout Major Cities Rationale
10 The Rio de Janeiro to Sao Paulo corridor 230 Billion Rio de Janeiro, São José dos Campos, Sao paulo, São Bernardo do Campo Culture, fashion, finance, and the centre of the emerging South American Economy, lead by Brazil (but followed by Colombia and Argentina).
9 The Dallas Triangle 400 Billion + Dallas, Austin, Houston Finance, Oil, easy access to the Gulf of Mexico, and a good old fashioned “don’t mess with” attitude.
8 Greater Paris 380 Billion Paris, Versailles Culture, fashion, architecture, and a strange attractor for top talent across Europe and the Americas.
7 The Greater Seoul Region 500 Billion Seoul, Incheon, Ansan, Hwaseong, Suwon The economic power-house of South Korea and an economic powerhouse of Asia with a new generation culture that, unlike their predecessors, is (openly) embracing western styles of business, fashion, and life and that is the most willing of all of the Asian nations to take risks (which are often necessary for true creativity and innovation).
6 The Frankfurt-Gärtringen Corridor 630 Billion Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Mannheim, Heidelberg, Stuttgart, Cärtringen The Frankfurt stock exchange, renewable energy, and German engineering!
5 The California Coast 1280 Billion San Francisco, Sacramento, Oakland, San Jose, Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego Fashion, Entertainment, Technology, a global innovation leader, and home to the largest ports on the West Coast.
4 London – Leeds – Chester 1200 Billion London, Northhampton, Leicester, Nottingham, Leeds, Manchester, Chester, Birmingham Not only do we have (one of) the major financial, fashion, and trade centre(s) of Europe in London, but we also have the home of the Commonwealth. The UK may have been overtaken by the US in the final years of the 19th century in GDP production, but it is still in the top 20 and will always be of prominent importance.
3 Greater Tokyo 2500 Billion Tokyo The world’s largest mega-region in terms of economic clout, Greater Tokyo cannot be ignored. And while the Japanese are typically wary of uncertainty and risk, unwilling to commit to deadlines, very orderly in business, extremely respectful of hierarchy, very shy, and extremely respective of face, Tokyo is an exception. The younger generation have adopted a lot of western values, have no problem relating to the west, and are even willing to behave like outsiders in their soto groups. It’s also close to other major centres (and mega regions) in Asia.
2 Amsterdam – Brussels – Antwerp 1500 Billion Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Brussels, Antwerp The world’s fourth largest mega-region in terms of economic clout, one of the most open and advanced regions in Europe in terms of broadband penetration and clean technology, and close proximity to the UK and Germany, two European powerhouses.
1 Boston – New York – Washington Corridor 2300 Billion Boston, Hartford, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington As the world’s second largest mega-region in terms of economic clout, the centre of the North American finance and fashion industries, and the nation’s capital, there is serious clout and talent readily available here.