Clusters in business

Competitive advantage is not created within a single firm alone. Efficiency in internal operations is essential but not necessarily sufficient to compete globally. Factors external to the business are increasingly important. Each firm is inherently part of a "cluster" of activities made up of firms along the value chain as well as related and supporting organizations e.g. research and development, finance, worker skills, infrastructure. In general, clusters are geographic concentrations of interconnected companies, specialized …

…skills of the workforce in the cluster to ensure effective use of these skills throughout the cluster. In addition, all the firms should standardize the technology they use to avoid compatibility problems or conflicts in software or hardware. This will ease movement of inputs, outputs, and processes inside the cluster, hence increasing its efficiency. Also, the firms should participate in the government organized informational sessions to ensure that consumer awareness of this cluster will increase.