By Cho Sang-wook

Coming out of the global financial crisis, the marketplace is greeting a return to growth in many sectors. If the past couple of years have been characterized by intense cost cutting, we now see more companies responding to competition by improving execution of strategies and enhancing operational agility and cost competitiveness.

While risk continues to dominate the business agenda, competition is becoming just as dominant a feature. Market volatility, pricing pressure, variations in market performance, demanding stakeholders — all these have contributed to a global economy that encourages competitive drive.

And with that drive comes opportunity for businesses. This is the reason why Ernst & Young has broadened the scope of what has traditionally been the “business risks” report to incorporate opportunities as well in this year’s publication.

Out of the 10 business opportunities, the top four actually focus on investing in such areas as processes, tools, IT, innovation and strategic execution. Improving execution of strategy across business functions is ranked number one overall.

An increasing number of global organizations seek to improve the way in which they communicate the business vision, goals and strategy, involving all business functions in the strategic planning process including budgeting and forecasting.

And this approach is a marked difference to how enterprises have responded to past recessions. Traditionally, they have sought market opportunities at a much earlier stage. Instead, companies now “look before they leap,” making sure they have the capability and innovative strengths to make a real impact in their chosen markets.

Our research shows there is a high degree of consistency looking across both countries and industries, with a common focus on operational agility and cost competitiveness. And this applies across mature and emerging markets, though with some indications that in emerging markets organizations are sensitive to the need to adopt more mature operating models, structures, processes and business controls as well as responding to competitive threats.

Surprisingly, emerging market demand growth only appears on the fifth place in the ranking of opportunities this year. Indeed one in five organizations reported that they had limited their focus on Asia, following setbacks there, to focus on their home markets. Regardless of current obstacles, however, there is a prediction that this opportunity will rise in the next couple of years.

In conclusion, many businesses now seem to be busy refining their market focus, putting in place the business infrastructure to strengthen competitiveness and enable growth, and focusing on outstanding execution at the same time.

Cho Sang-wook is an advisory leader at Ernst & Young Korea.