Companies Who are Weathering the Recession

Michael Evans, Ph.D. is the founder, president and CEO of AIT Laboratories.

Think Globally, Not Locally.

It was a pleasure to be part of the roundtable discussion hosted by Inside INdiana Business’s Gerry Dick earlier this month.  There were some great conversations surrounding the economy, education standards here and abroad, and the global aspect of business, and the whole experience left me with some lingering thoughts about the overall state of affairs in the United States.

With the housing market leveling out in certain parts of the country and an increased commitment from Americans to become more fiscally responsible, there’s reason to believe that the economy will soon be on its way up.  However, one of the biggest lessons our country has yet to understand is that when it comes to business, we are competing in a global economy and not just with the competitor next door.  In comparison to citizens from places like India and China, we are less traveled, fluent in fewer languages—a large number of Americans only know English—and less in touch with our global counterparts.  Take General Motors.  One of the biggest contributing factors to their bankruptcy was their dependence on their reputation as an American-made product and a Midwest-based company while Toyota did the leg work to put out a better car.

When it comes to education, I think Americans take a similar, more laissez-faire approach, which is equally hurtful to our economy in the long run.  There’s too much “my dad worked at company X, so I’m going to work there, too.”  Many of our young people don’t take advantage of all that is offered to them in school.  In Indiana, our public education system is broken; that’s evident from low test scores produced at the elementary level and poor high school graduation rates state-wide.  We are fortunate, however, to have colleges that produce tremendous talent.  My company, AIT Laboratories, has benefited immensely from gleaning talent from colleges throughout Indiana.  We just need to start building that foundation much, much earlier, because the better your education, the more capable you are at adapting to change.  That applies not only to business but life as well.