At one time the term “colony” was loosely defined as: any geographic region that exported raw materials to the “home country” and then purchased those materials back as value added products. By that economic measure, the U.S. is quickly becoming a colony of Asia . To many hardwood companies the situation looks hopeless… While direct competition in such an environment may prove extremely difficult to impossible, change, so as to shift out of a directly competitive mode, can improve the business outlook. Yet change, a difficult challenge under any conditions, can only occur if we do something different. And dramatic change can often occur only by doing something dramatically different. We suggest that there are two keys to competing in this ever-competitive world: a) providing organizational leadership that is multidimensional, relationship- centric, and bottom line focused rather than fixated on gross margins, and b) creating an organization that is able to learn and adapt to change rapidly.
From Dovetail Partners

News notes are courtesy of Southern Forests Network News Notes
www.southernsustainableforests.org