Canada’s wood firms cluster for survival – and growth
April 6, 2012 – 2:33 am
Three hours northwest of Toronto, a group of Ontario manufacturers is throwing the traditional rules of business out the window.
Business owners visit each other’s factories. They share secrets. They plan long-term hiring strategies, collaborate on research and development, and ponder productivity enhancements. They help solve each other’s problems on a shared website.
In years past – tumultuous years, given the surge of competition from China and the soaring Canadian currency – these small and medium-sized makers of furniture, flooring, doors and cabinets viewed each other as direct competitors. Now, 30 business owners gather every few months in small boardrooms to share ideas.
The companies formed a cluster, a concept first coined by Harvard University’s Michael Porter two decades ago that has since been adopted in countries from Germany to China. While s
