Did you know that Chile has the driest desert in the world, glaciers, big forests, numerous rivers, fertile valleys, 50 active volcanoes and 3 different climate zones leading to national hazards, earthquakes like the recent one and tsunamis? Well, we didn’t either, until we started researching for and working on our final paper for the Michael E. Porter MBA class of Robert Kennedy College on Corporate Strategy and Competitiveness where we had decided to write on Chile’s competitiveness and the Chilean wine industry as a project team of four, dispersed in four different countries: Hungary, Portugal, Qatar and Switzerland.
Located in Southern South America, South of Peru and West of Bolivia and Argentina, the Republic of Chile is about 2,880 miles long. It is bordered by the Pacific Ocean in the West and by the Andes mountains in the East. Chile occupies a land mass of 756,102 sq km, ranking 38th in the world in land mass. Chile’s population is estimated at 16,746,491, and has a growth rate of 0.856%.
As it turnes out, Chile is a fascinating country with huge development potential which has already performed remarkably well in many areas and contributed to Chile’s ranking 30th in the Global Competitiveness Index 2009-2010.
Our project paper which we’ve just handed in (today is July 5th, 2010), has been a group work from the start. Never have I experienced a group of four people so far apart working so harmonically and closely together as with you, dear Ildiko, Joana and Bernie, for which I would like to thank you from my deepest heart. It’s been my great pleasure and honour to work with such devoted, patient, enduring and generous people who I haven’t had met before April 21st, 2010. The great experience proves that we don’t need to be coming from the same countries, cultures and backgrounds in order to understand each other perfectly.
See the result of this beautiful work and read our paper here:
Chile and the Chilean Wine Industry
P.S. I wrote the executive summary and the chapters “Identification of Strategic Issues Facing Chile” as well as “Identification of Strategic Issues Facing the Chilean Wine Cluster”.
Salud!
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