“Aquaculture leaders must rethink the fundamentals”

Volatility prevails, making it increasingly difficult to predict where market and business trends are headed. The challenge for any business is to be competitive and that is far more difficult when the rules of the game and the shape of the pitch keep changing.

“Companies and nations must rethink the fundamentals of their competitiveness,” says Professor Garelli. “It takes a certain type of mind to see and seize the opportunities. Business leaders should be aware that conventionally competent people are not necessarily highly competitive. At AquaVision, we shall take a look at what helps to make people and companies consistently competitive, no matter what changes take place in the world around them.”

Although some regions of the world are slowing down, others are still very buoyant. “Thirty years ago, the global market was the US, Europe and Japan with 580 million people. Now, almost all countries have open economies and the market has 7 billion people; more than ten times larger. The new arrivals are growing rapidly as they strive to catch up.”

“The development of the new economies began a major shift and emerging economies are transforming into emerging powers with massive foreign currency reserves. These economies are fostering world-scale companies with substantial financial strength that they invest in commodities and industrial assets around the world. It is no longer a cosy place.”

Formerly Managing Director of the World Economic Forum and director of the Davos Annual Meetings, Stéphane Garelli is professor at the Institute of Management Development in Lausanne, where he is the Founder of the World Competitiveness Centre, and is associate professor at the University of Lausanne. He has worked closely with several global enterprises, including Hewlett-Packard Europe, SGS and Nestlé. He is a member of numerous international institutions and several boards and is chairman of the Swiss newspaper Le Temps.

AquaVision is a world-class aquaculture conference that attracts a diverse range of stakeholders to Stavanger every two years and will do so again 16-18 June 2014. The conference, organised by Skretting and its parent company Nutreco since 1996, has established itself as an important meeting place for some 450 participants from around 35 countries.