Marketing is one of the most important part if not, most vital part in the business industry. It is one of the factors that contributes to the outcome of an industry. It also affects not just the business industry, but also a country’s own economy. “Marketing is a broad topic that covers a range of aspects” (S. Geld, 2006, p.1). One of the ranges that it covers is international marketing. International marketing involves the firm in making one or more marketing mix decisions across national boundaries. At its most complex level, it involves the firm in establishing manufacturing facilities overseas and coordinating marketing strategies across the globe(Doole and Lowe, 2001). It could simply mean, applying marketing principles in other countries. International marketing is commonly used now a days. Because companies around the world wants to be globally competitive. Companies today choose to be globally competitive, because it will bring them to their aimed success or simply earn more profit. Being globally competitive also involves to trade internationally. That trade could save a country out of poverty. And companies or corporations that trade internationally can contribute to the competitiveness of a country. A country’s competitiveness could be measured through the twelve pillars of competitiveness. And measuring the competitiveness of a country will show the country’s status in this world. The twelve pillars of competitiveness is very important to developing countries (formerly known as third world countries) like India and China. India is at rank 49 while china is at rank 29. India and China are the best example because both of the said countries has a fast growing economy and is expected to be joining the powerful countries in the world in the years to come. Even though China and India are on their way to the top, the still have obstacles to overcome. These obstacles that denies them from their rightful throne in the super countries kingdom is part of the twelve pillars. This only shows that even if you are the best, if you lack or if you weren’t able to balance your attention on the different sectors of your country or business, your foundation could be in jeopardy. Like the issue that Toyota is facing today. The world’s leading automobile company is facing a law suit, because of their failure to maintain the quality that they have been giving consumers. They may have gave to much of their attention to the speed of their production. They maybe now facing one of the biggest issue in the history of Toyota.

Who would have thought that one of the key components in the process of eliminating poverty is free trade? I know a simple citizen like me wouldn’t have. Trade has been part of the history of men ever since. All of our ancestors has used trade since they discovered how to travel. Like in ancient times, some countries used trade as a stepping stone to make their economy grow. Some countries visit their neighboring countries just to trade their products which they were the only ones to have with the products of other countries which they don’t have. This evidence shows that trading has been one of the key to make a country grow since the ancient times. There was a finding by WTO that countries which have a liberated kind of trade is slowly catching up with the rich or developed countries. WTO said “Trade liberalization helps poor countries to catch up with rich ones and that this faster economic growth helps to alleviate poverty” (THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION [WTO], 2000). Maybe your wondering how does trade help remove poverty? Trade creates job opportunities and a free trade means more trade which can only mean more job opportunities. And this job opportunities will be surely grabbed by people who is experiencing poverty and this will result the sudden increase in their household which will lift them out of poverty.

In India, poverty is also one of their biggest problem. But if the plan of India, that in 2025 a large percentage of their lower class will become middle class, will go as smoothly as possible then their dilemma about poverty is already solved. Actually, the main concern of India is education (which is long term) and infrastructures (which is short term). The growing economy of India is rapidly gaining momentum, but to sustain this momentum the Indian government must work harder and focus on the two biggest factors that affects their economy, theses are infrastructures and education. There are two kinds of infrastructures, the hard infrastructures and the soft infrastructures. The infrastructures which India has problems are roads, power plant, rail freight corridors, ports and airports. These infrastructures are called hard infrastructures. While for soft infrastructure are schools, hospitals, infant mortality rates and illiteracy. “The hard and soft infrastructures must improve at an even faster pace than they are today” (A. Zainulbhai, 2007). Like India, China is also a developing country which has an obstacle in their path to success. “A more consumer-centric economy would allocate capital and resources more efficiently, generate more jobs, and spread the benefits of growth more equitably” (Devan, Rowland, and Woetzel, 2009). Their problem revolves on education and health care services. And this problem is the one that holds back the consumers from spending their household income. Chinese are trying to save their money in case that there is a need in acquiring health care. This is the reason why Chinese tend to oversave and underspend. The ratio of there population to there spending is so far, that their spending could be compared to a small populated country. “The country’s households have an extraordinarily high ability to save: the average Chinese family squirrels away an astonishing 25 percent of its discretionary income, about six times the savings rate for US households and three times the rate for Japan’s” (Devan, Rowland, and Woetzel, 2009). When i first heard of this, i thought that maybe the culture of china is the one that has a problem. Because as we all know here in the Philippines, Chinese are a very thrifty people. They’d rather save than to spend or they’ll try to buy things a lot cheaper, but as i continue to read the article i was able to understand why. I also found out that even though the primary level and secondary level of education in china is free, but when Chinese students goes to college, they will have to spend really big just to have a good college education. “The cost of a university education is nearly half the disposable income of a typical Chinese family” (Devan, Rowland, and Woetzel, 2009). It is evident that china is doing what they can overcome this dilemma. It is evident because china has two national student loan. But even with the establishment of the two national student loan, only ten percent of the college students in china takes advantage in this kind of opportunity.

The dilemmas that India and China are facing right now are part of the so called twelve pillars of competitiveness. This twelve pillars of competitiveness is like a criteria to score a country. These criteria is the basis of how globally competitive a country’s economy is. And when they have rated your country’s competitiveness, they will now know and place your country at the corresponding rank where your country is supposedly placed. The key in becoming a fruitful economy, is to fill up all of the twelve pillars. Thats how important these twelve pillars is and thats how important monitoring of your whole responsibility is. Like what Toyota is facing right now. Toyota has failed to divide its attention and only focus on the speed of their production. I think that Toyota may missed some process that they were supposedly do. The complaints were about the accelerator pedal and brake system. Consumers said that the car continuously accelerated even after releasing the accelerator, while other consumers complaints are about the braking system. Some consumers say that the braking system is not working properly and even if they were trying to stop or stepping on the brakes, the car was still unable to stop. For the first month of the issue, Toyota still continues to gain sales but in the past few weeks, there had been a report that Toyota is losing sales. “Toyota has reported a fall in sales of 8.7% for the first full month since it announced major recalls in January” (Hepcker, 2010). There are also some reports that GM and Ford is gaining sales sin the recalls of Toyota. “Ford has reported a jump in US sales of 43% in February whilst GM posted a modest rise of 11.5%” (Hepcker, 2010). The cars where they have received complaints were RAV4, Corolla, Matrix, Avalon, Camry, Highlander, Tundra, and Sequoia models. Many are wondering right now “how will Toyota gain the trust of consumers again”? For now, we don’t know what Toyota is planning up their sleeves but one things for sure, they will do their best to get back on the horse and ride again.

It is amazing how marketing or international marketing is related to this issues. When you look at the issue, you would possibly think that it cannot be related to marketing, its like marketing is a puppeteer pulls strings to control the puppet, but you look deeply into it, marketing is one of the vital part that made it what it is today and what it will become in the future.

It was impressive on how Mr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia (the deputy chairman of India’s planning commission) answered the questions asked by the McKinsey Quarterly. The interview was focused on the growing economy of India and how they will face the problems. By the way that Mr. Ahluwalia answered the questions, I can say that India is well prepared for the things to come and have well planned strategies for the current dilemmas they are facing right now. Their priority in maintaining their growth is infrastructure, education, political sustainability agriculture and health. As you may have noticed these are part of the twelve pillars that was said the key in having a fruitful economy. Mr. Ahluwalia said that the key to sustaining the growth of India is through infrastructure for short term and education for long term. So that can mean only one thing, education is a bigger problem or a tougher challenge than the others. They said that it would take at least five to ten years to fully develop their education.

The growing economy of India is rapidly gaining momentum, but to sustain this momentum the Indian government must work harder and focus on the two biggest factors that affects their economy, theses are infrastructures and education. There are two kinds of infrastructures, the hard infrastructures and the soft infrastructures. The infrastructures which India has problems are roads, power plant, rail freight corridors, ports and airports. These infrastructures are called hard infrastructures. While for soft infrastructure are schools, hospitals, infant mortality rates and illiteracy.

The Indian government has predicted that their middle class population will grow from 5% to 40% and will make India the 5^th largest consumer market. This sudden growth is the result of economic growth. Because of their economic growth many Indians will be lifted from poverty, because economic growth will lead to more high earning jobs that will raise the average income of households, thus the sudden massive rise of the middle class population. The improvement in the average income of households will result to a larger consumer market. As predicted also by the Indian government, the new group of middle class will move to India’s urban areas. The problem is, even though India is a fast growing economy, their urbanization isn’t proceeding as quickly as it should. This will surely stress the urban infrastructure which is already burdened. And unlike in other countries, urban growth is spread across a large number of cities, in India only Mumbai and Delhi will be the only cities that will have an urban growth.

I was amazed on how the economy of India is taking the path to success. I am so impressed with the interview conducted by the McKinsey Quarterly. They interviewed Mr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia the deputy chairman of India’s planning commission. He talked about the plans of India for the years to come. They have planned way ahead of time and their plan was so precise that when he explains it, he explains the plan down the last bit of information that the interviewer asked for. I am also impressed by the way they deal with their crisis. When they say they will do it, they will absolutely do it. So they just don’t “talk the talk, they also walk the walk”. And they deal with their dilemmas simultaneously which will speed up the progress of their economy.

Competitiveness is the set of institutions, policies, and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country (as defined by World Economic Forum). This level of productivity is measured through the 12 pillars of competitiveness. These 12 pillars are institutions, infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, health and primary education, higher education and training; goods market efficiency, labor market efficiency, technological readiness, market size, business sophistication and innovation. The institutional environment is determined by the legal and administrative framework within which individuals, firms, and governments interact to generate income and wealth in the economy. Extensive and efficient infrastructure is an essential driver of competitiveness. It is critical for ensuring the effective functioning of the economy, as it is an important factor determining the location of economic activity and the kinds of activities or sectors that can develop in a particular economy. The stability of the macroeconomic environment is important for business and, therefore, is important for the overall competitiveness of a country. A healthy workforce is vital to a country’s competitiveness and productivity.Workers who are ill cannot function to their potential and will be less productive. Basic education increases the efficiency of each individual worker. Moreover, workers who have received little formal education can carry out only simple manual work and find it much more difficult to adapt to more advanced production processes and techniques. Lack of basic education can therefore become a constraint on business development, with firms finding it difficult to move up the value chain by producing more-sophisticated or value-intensive products. Quality higher education and training is crucial for economies that want to move up the value chain beyond simple production processes and products.13 In particular, today’s globalizing economy requires economies to nurture pools of well-educated workers who are able to adapt rapidly to their changing environment. Countries with efficient goods markets are well positioned to produce the right mix of products and services given supply-and-demand conditions, as well as to ensure that these goods can be most effectively traded in the economy. Market efficiency also depends on demand conditions such as customer orientation and buyer sophistication. The efficiency and flexibility of the labor market are critical for ensuring that workers are allocated to their most efficient use in the economy and provided with incentives to give their best effort in their jobs. An efficient financial sector allocates the resources saved by a nation’s citizens as well as those entering the economy from abroad to their most productive uses. Technological readiness measures the agility with which an economy adopts existing technologies to enhance the productivity of its industries. The size of the market affects productivity because large markets allow firms to exploit economies of scale. Business sophistication is conducive to higher efficiency in the production of goods and services. This leads, in turn, to increased productivity, thus enhancing a nation’s competitiveness. The final pillar of competitiveness is innovation. Although substantial gains can be obtained by improving institutions, building infrastructure, reducing macroeconomic instability, or improving human capital, all these factors eventually seem to run into diminishing returns.

Even though the 12 pillars are separate, they still need to work together to make an economy be fruitful. For example, innovation (12th pillar) is not possible in a world without institutions (1st pillar) that guarantee intellectual property rights, cannot be performed in countries with a poorly educated and poorly trained labor force (5th pillar), and is more difficult in economies with inefficient markets (6th, 7th, and 8^th pillars) or without extensive and efficient infrastructure (2nd pillar).

There are stages index that used to know what is the key to success of a certain economy. For basic requirements like institution, infrastructure, macroeconomic stability, and; health and primary education. These pillars are for factor driven economies. While for efficiency enhancer’s Higher education and training, Goods market efficiency, Labor market efficiency, financial market sophistication, Technological readiness, Market size are key for efficiency driven economies. And for innovation and sophistication factors, business sophistication and innovation are the key for innovation driven economies.

The 12 pillars I a very helpful guide mostly on developing countries because they can use it as a map to make their way to success. If they follow the 12 pillars, their development will go as smoothly as possible. They will become a good competitor.

I can say that trade is very important to a country because most rich or first world country trades. Trade is one of the main key point in the ongoing success of rich countries.Trade helps a country to develop or grow rapidly. There was a finding by WTO that countries which have a liberated kind of trade is slowly catching up with the rich or developed countries. And like in ancient times, some countries used trade as a stepping stone to make their economy grow. Some countries visit their neighboring countries just to trade their products which they were the only ones to have with the products of other countries which they don’t have. This evidence shows that trading has been one of the key to make a country grow since the ancient times.

Trade can eliminate poverty or help eliminate poverty. Countries which practices trade liberalization, gains from this practice. Poor people benefits more from this kind of trade, because trade helps people develop their productive potential as said by the WTO. And trade liberalization means more trade and more trade will lead to the exploitation of their productive potential. Trade also eliminates poverty through job opportunity. But even though it creates jobs, there is still a negative side to it, not all people who had an opportunity will be successful. So there is still a small percentage of failure.

The elimination of poverty will surely result to the growth of an economy. Poverty is one of the major reason why the economy of a country drops or has a difficulty in making their economy grow. Since trade is one of the agents that can eliminate poverty, then trade can make an economy grow. And since trade creates job opportunities that leads to alleviation of poverty and less poverty means a better economy.
Now i know how important trade is. Its so important that it can make an economy rise from the ashes. It can simply remove poverty through the opportunities that it makes like jobs and develop the productive potential of a person. And from that opportunity, it will result to the growth of economy.