Executive Report on Strategies in Laos

The primary audience for this report is managers involved with the highest levels of the strategic planning process and consultants who help their clients with this task. The user will not only benefit from the hundreds of hours that went into the methodology and its application, but also from its alternative perspective on strategic planning in Laos.This report helps executives evaluate strategic investments in Laos. As the editor of this report, I am drawing on a methodology developed at INSEAD, an international business school (www.insead.edu). The methodology decomposes a country's strategic potential based on its latent demand. A country may have very high latent demand, yet have low accessibility, making it a less attractive market than many smaller potential countries having higher levels of accessibility. With this perspective, this report provides a strategic profile of Laos. It does so by compiling published information that directly relates to latent demand. The reader new to Laos can quickly understand where Laos fits into a firm's strategic perspective. In Chapter 2, I report my findings on the real economic potential, or latent demand, represented by Laos when defined as an area of dominant influence.