Rough Diamonds: The Four Traits of Successful Breakout Firms in BRIC Countries

Chapter 5

Crafting Operational Excellence

RDs [rough diamonds] regard agility as an innate skill, much like a “gene” in their embedded organizational systems. Failure to respond quickly might result in an opportunity being transformed into a threat. [Chinese] RDs regard such opportunities as the basis for responding quickly to changes.

—SKOLKOVO Business School–Ernst & Young Institute for Emerging Market Studies, Rough Diamonds: The 4Cs Framework for Sustained High Performance

While it is true that emerging markets tend to have lower labor costs, it is unlikely that these alone will lead to successful applications. In this study, operational excellence is realized in a number of diverse ways, and other factors beyond low costs are critical to ...