technology 17 Answer 1: USA
Interesting points: The US leads this table, but only just. China is very close behind. The UK ranks eighth. Source: World Economic Forum Global Competitiveness Report.
Answer 2: South Korea
Interesting points: Most countries have a relatively consistent margin of spend by government, being from around 0.6% (Japan and UK) to around 1% (South Korea). However there is much greater variance in the amount of spend by the private and third sectors. These ranged from as low as 1.1% (Canada) to up to 3.0% in South Korea. Based on data from 2011, the UK ranked eighth and perhaps surprisingly lagged behind other European countries such as Finland and France.
Source: BIS paper on Insights from International benchmarking of the UK science and innovation system.
Answer 3: China
Interesting points: Despite being renowned as a country that doesn’t respect patents, businesses appear to register a significant number of patents within China. The Chinese patent office received c.650,000 applications against the USA's 540,000. However, China's list is dominated by resident applications (ie Chinese entities registering patents in China). The US's applications are split 50:50 between resident and non-resident. This suggests that businesses outside of China still do not see the benefit of registering a patent in China, whereas in other jurisdictions they do. The EPO has a similar split to the US, but with a relatively low 150,000 applications. Mexico is the highest ranked of the MINT countries with 15,000 applications.
Source: WIPO IP Facts and Figures 2013.
Answer 4: USA Interesting points: The US dominates the statistics, with almost 60% of immigrant inventors going to the US. The second highest, Germany, accounts for only 7.1%. The UK appears to be the fourth choice. In terms of where emigrants come from, there is a much wider spread. China and India are at the top of the list (given populations this isn't surprising) followed by a large number of the established countries, including the UK. When looking at the ways in which immigrants come into the country, the entry routes are virtually always in favour of university or government research organisations. There were very few countries where business was the main reason for the individual coming to the country in the first place.
Source: WIPO World Intellectual Property Indicators 2013 report.
Answer 5: Canada Interesting points: The US still appears to favour tried and trusted markets for its acquisitions. The top five, in order, were UK, Canada, Germany, Australia and India. Interestingly China now ranks seventh on the list behind those five and Brazil. Contrary to perception China has actually taken a significant drop in the table. Looking back, this is perhaps to do with the practical challenges of Chinese acquisitions. Ten years ago China would have been fourth.
Source: Grant Thornton International.
Answer 6: Switzerland Interesting points: Switzerland was consistently ranked high in all categories within the report. The report calculates using a mix of both questionnaires and facts and therefore is to some extent subjective. The questions in relation to innovation and sophistication included a number of factors such as availability of latest technologies, readiness to adopt new technologies etc. The perception of all of these can be as helpful to business as the cold hard facts. On the scale of market size, Switzerland ranks 42nd.
Source: WEF Global Competitiveness Report. THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – DECEMBER14/JANUARY15
www.businessmag.co.uk Answer 7: Iceland
Interesting points: Northern European countries have extremely high rates for internet usage with Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Netherlands, Denmark, Luxembourg and Finland topping the list, all with over 90% usage. The UK is very high with 87%. European countries also appear high for broadband connectivity. Switzerland has the highest with approximately 43 connections per 100 people. The UK appears 7th with approximately 36 per 100. The US is only 28th for Internet usage (81%) and 19th on the broadband list with 28 connections per 100. Europe also dominates on percentage of population using the Internet, with Iceland, Norway and Sweden at the top. Bahrain is the first non-European country at eighth. The UK is ninth and the US 16th.
Source: International Telecommunication Union website.
Answer 8: 8 Interesting points: Russia – 1, China – 3, Turkey – 4. Professor Richard Levin, the Ivy League's longest-tenured president, has predicted that Chinese institutions could rank in the world's top 10 universities in 25 years time, squeezing out some of the elite western campuses. Currently, British universities dominate the top 10 rankings with Cambridge coming second to Harvard, University College London fourth and Oxford and Imperial College London joint fifth. The rest of the top15 are US universities. China's highest-ranking institution is Tsinghua, at 49. But the Chinese government now spends at least 1.5% of its gross domestic product on higher education with the aim of propelling its best institutions, such as the universities of Tsinghua and Peking, into the top slots. Given education is a big draw for inventors to come to a country, this could produce a major shift.
Source: Times HE website.
Answer 9: Russia
Interesting points: Clearly cultural differences play a big part in being able to do business. Whilst this answer is based on surveys and might not be entirely scientific, the differences between Russian culture and society are stark based on the analysis. The UK and the US overall scores were very similar, although the US scored very low on pragmatism.
Source:
http://geert-hofstede.com/united-kingdom.html.
Answer 10: USA Interesting points: The US rate of 40% is significantly higher than any other country – something the US government is considering addressing. Europe has the lowest average continental rate, with the UK rate dropping towards 20%. Singapore and Russia are both lower than the UK but not significantly so. US – 40%, UK – 21%, Turkey – 20%, Singapore – 17%, Mexico – 30%, Brazil – 25%, Russia – 20%, India – 34%, Indonesia – 25%, China – 25%, South Africa – 28%, Nigeria – 30%
Source: Grant Thornton internal website. Details:
www.grant-thornton.co.uk
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