Competitiveness and Industry/Sector Specific Projects

CORPORATE CAPABILITES

J.E. Austin Associates’ (JAA) strengths are centered on assisting businesses within developing, emerging and transition economies to grow sustainably and to improve their strategic and operational performance.

Through private sector growth activities worldwide, JAA has acquired a deep and broad understanding of the policies and institutions that underlie efficient market-focused systems. Such understanding informs our development of coherent and balanced approaches that address the economic, governance, and institutional issues that arise in implementing economic and political reforms. To accomplish project goals, JAA uses tools such as:

• Private sector input to legal and institutional reform—Mobilize private sector stakeholders to analyze constraints on growth and profitability and inform the public sector of these constraints.
• Dialogue mechanisms—Country benchmarking, private sector "Maps," dialogue sessions, private sector surveys, focus groups, and high-level policy forums based on the OECD model.
• Comparative policy analysis—Database tracking and ranking of all countries on 40 key indicators to aid dialogue.
• Austin Policy Impact Framework—Identify macroeconomic influences on the private sector and illustrate the practical effects of government policy on private enterprise finance, marketing, management, production, distribution, operations, and organization.
• Focused surveys and focus group analysis—Gather statistics on the private sector and data on entrepreneurs’ perceptions of institutional and policy bottlenecks, training needs, and business opportunities.
• Cluster-based services—Mobilization and facilitation of industry and geographic cluster-based decision-making and implementation as a means to overcoming constraints, achieving strategic objectives, informing public-private dialogue, encouraging investment, and creating awareness of market requirements and opportunities.

These tools are being applied in national and regional competitiveness initiatives, private sector development projects, institutional restructuring programs and others. One of the goals of these initiatives is to facilitate public–private sector dialogue on national competitiveness, vastly increasing the likelihood that policy, institutional, legal, and regulatory reforms will be designed and implemented to strengthen the economic environment for private sector enterprises.

JAA has developed leading capacities in inter-related areas such as:

• Competitiveness and Industry/Sector Specific Projects
• Agribusiness and Agriculture
• Trade and Investment
• Finance
• Private Enterprise and Private Sector Development
• Training and Workforce Development
• Microenterprise Development
• Infrastructure and Infrastructure-Related Services
• Institutional/Organizational Improvement and Public-Private Dialogue

Through our work in these various areas, JAA has developed a capacity to work with a broad range of clusters, industries and sectors within varying contexts. Listed below is a table illustrating some of the clusters, industries, and sectors with which JAA has worked since 1986:

Agribusiness and Agroprocessing (both specific and broad-based) Apparel/Textiles Aquaculture Farming Banking and Financial Services Beverages (Rum, fruit juices wine, etc.) Business Development Services Canning Cashew Ceramics Cocoa Coffee Coir (Coconut) Construction Cotton Cut Flowers

Dairy Education Electronic Components Fish/Seafood Fisheries and fish processing Forest Products Gems and Jewelry Grains Handicrafts Health Services High Value Fruit and Vegetables Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) (including multimedia and software) Leather Products Livestock and Meat Production Maritime Shipping

Microfinance Oilseeds Packaging Products Paper and Paperboard Poultry Pyrethrum Rubber Rubber Products Silk Spices (including many specific species) Tea Tobacco/Cigars Tourism Toys Transport Services Wood Products