The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) rated Taiwan ranked 13th out of Essay

The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) rated Taiwan ranked 13th out of 66 countries globally for IT competitiveness globally in 2 - Essay Example But to be competitive, there are key public strategies and policies that need to be considered in the field of information technology. In this essay, Taiwan is used as a case study of a highly performing information technology competitive country among sixty six (66) other countries that were ranked by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). The inputs that went to getting Taiwan this enviable place of 13th that puts it ahead of countries like South Korea and Japan are examined to the latter using Porter’s Diamond Model. The analysis is also expanded to include ways by which the country can maintain its position or better it as well as ways of avoiding the unlikely event of losing out on its position. At the end of the paper, the writer hopes to achieve the objective of clearly outlining the national information and communication technology strengths and weaknesses associated with various countries in comparison to Taiwan to see how Taiwan could be used as a model especially wh en it comes to the area of electronics and semiconductor development. Overview of the IT Competiveness Index The IT Industry competitiveness index is generally in place as a scale for finding out how various countries are performing in terms of the application of information technology into industrial growth. To this end, several indicators are used to find out how sixty six (66) selected countries are competing among themselves in the various areas of indicators. The index was first published in 2007 (Rad and Beek, 2009) and had 26 of the said indicators grouped into six major categories for scoring. After scoring is done in the various categories, the accumulated score determines the place of various countries. This implies that the IT Industry Competitiveness Index is highly quantitative, making it empirical and open to public critique (Roll, 2006). The subsequent advantage that comes with this provision is that the index is generally tagged as credible; even considering the fact that it is hosted by none other quarters than the Economists Intelligence Unit with support for BSA. The various categories are given different weightings according to the impact that each of them makes towards information technology enhancement. The six major categories and their corresponding weightings are presented below. Category Weighting Overall business environment IT infrastructure Human capital Legal environment R&D environment Support for IT industry development 10% 20% 20% 10% 25% 15% Total 100% Source: The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited, 2011 Factor Conditions Analysis of Taiwan’s Performance The chat bellow gives a detailed and graphical representation of the performance of Taiwan in the 2011 IT Competitiveness Index. From the graph presented above, it can be seen that Taiwan scored more than half of available score of 100% in all six categories. The highest performing scores were however recorded in business environment and legal environment, which scored 86.5% and 74.5% respectively. This means that Taiwan as a country has created an enabling business environment that makes the country highly attractive to investors, both home and abroad. As the investors do business in the country, they are assured of sound legal backing that is free from all forms of