Editor's letter.

What makes someone a great leader? This is one of the questions being addressed at CIMA's Global Business Management Week, and it has no easy answer. CIMA's research into global leaders found that, while vision came high up the list of "must haves", innovation was left near the bottom; people management was considered a key asset, but HR was one of the least valued functions.

The truth is that global leaders -- along with successful business managers -- do not all have the same traits, although there are some common themes. Managers, like businesses, have different approaches. Take the supermarket sector: the big players are divided over whether to compete on price, quality, customer service and loyalty bonuses, or home delivery services. Of course their directors would probably argue that they aim to compete on all these fronts, but at some point each has to make its decision. And the chances are that if they decide to boost competitiveness by specialising in different areas, they are all more likely to survive. Once they start to compete on price, the bigger players will win because of their superior buying power and distribution channels.

Of course real profitability, which was the number one "critical success factor" cited by the senior executives in CIMA's research, depends on companies looking more closely at their customers. Loyalty cards...

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