Porsche employees assemble a Panamera in the Porsche AG production facility in Leipzig
Image: dpa
German companies in particular must improve their competitiveness. You have four levers for this. In our guest article, two members of the Schmalenbach Society for Business Administration explain what these are.
Dhe competitiveness of the German economy is in danger of disappearing. This would visibly wither the central root of our prosperity. This must not happen if we do not want to risk phenomena of social tension and even division. But companies shouldn’t just criticize the admittedly more challenging environment they face. They themselves can and must do something to secure and strengthen their competitive power.
To do this, one should first take a sober look at the situation: Over the past decade, the location and innovation conditions have continuously deteriorated. The economy is faltering, the number of company bankruptcies in Germany is increasing, and German start-ups are finding it increasingly difficult to find capital for their ideas due to higher interest rates and risk-averse financiers. The numbers are alarming: According to a survey by the digital association Bitkom, a good third of the founders surveyed are considering moving abroad with their young company. Even the most recent billions in investments by technology giants such as the electric car pioneer Tesla or the chip companies Intel and TSMC for new factories in Germany do not hide the fact that our country is struggling with increasing capital outflows. The German Economic Institute has determined that German companies brought more than 135 billion euros abroad as direct investments in 2022, while only around 10 billion euros were invested by foreign companies in Germany.
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