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Sustainable Competitive Advantage (SCA) How to survive against your competition over a long period of time |
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By: Vadim Kotelnikov
Founder, Ten3 Business e-Coach – Inspiration and Innovation Unlimited!
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"True progress in any field is a relay race and not a single event." – Cavett Roberts |
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Three Parts of Competitive Advantage1 |
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Successful Innovation |
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The
Art of War:
Planning an
Attack
Excerpts from
the
The Art of War, Sun Tzu |
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What is Sustainable Competitive Advantage?
Sustainable competitive advantage is the focal point of your corporate strategy. It allows the maintenance and improvement of your enterprise's competitive position in the market.
It is an advantage that enables business to survive against its competition over a long period of time.
Todays' Era of Hypercompetition
Hypercompetition is a key feature of the new economy. New customers want it quicker, cheaper, and they want it their way.
The fundamental quantitative and qualitative shift in competition requires organizational change on an unprecedented scale. Today, your sustainable competitive advantage should be built upon your corporate capabilities and must constantly be reinvented.
Distinctive capabilities are the basis of your competitive advantage. According to the new resource-based view of the company, sustainable competitive advantage is achieved by continuously developing existing and creating new resources and capabilities in response to rapidly changing market conditions.
Among these resources and capabilities, in the new economy, knowledge represents the most important value-creating asset.
The opportunity for your company to sustain your competitive advantage is determined by your capabilities of two kinds – distinctive capabilities and reproducible capabilities - and their unique combination you create to achieve synergy. Your distinctive capabilities - the characteristics of your company which cannot be replicated by competitors, or can only be replicated with great difficulty - are the basis of your sustainable competitive advantage. Distinctive capabilities can be of many kinds: patents, exclusive licenses, strong brands, effective leadership, teamwork, or tacit knowledge. Reproducible capabilities are those that can be bought or created by your competitors and thus by themselves cannot be a source of competitive advantage... More
Leadership
Leadership is the necessary condition for long-term competitiveness. In particular in the knowledge economy, what is proving to be most effective is "the emerging style of values-based leadership, both as motivation for constant innovation up and down all organization levels and as a source of unity and coherence across fragmented firm boundaries."4 Harnessing your abilities to lead through the power of intellect, will, persistence, and vision creates synergies that propel successful companies in the quest for, and achievement of, competitive advantage... More
Innovation used to be a linear trajectory from new knowledge to new product. Now innovation is neither singular nor linear, but systemic. It arises from complex interactions between many individuals, organizations and environmental factors. Firms which are successful in realizing the full returns from their technologies and innovations are able to match their technological developments with complementary expertise in other areas of their business, such as manufacturing, distribution, human resources, marketing, and customer relationships... More
Radical Innovation
Long-term corporate success linked
to the ability to innovate. Although corporate investment in
improvements to existing products and processes does bring growth, it is
new game changing breakthroughs that will launch company into new markets,
enable rapid growth, and create high return on investment....
More
Case
in Point
7-Part Competitive
Strategy of Microsoft
Although Bill Gates, Founder of
Microsoft, built his empire on technological products, his business
mastery is even more important than his technical skills, and his
competitive urge is a huge driving force.
The early success of Microsoft was founded on the
company's 7-part competitive strategy...
More
Customers for Life
By:
Brian Tracy
The two most important words to keep in mind in developing a
successful customer base are
Positioning
and
Differentiation.
Differentiation refers to your ability to separate yourself and
your product or service from that of your competitors. And it is
the key to building and maintaining a competitive advantage.
This is the advantage that you and your company have over your
competitors in the same marketplace
– the unique and special benefits that no one else can
give your customer...
Corporate Culture as a Fundamental
Competitive Advantage
The strength of your
organizational culture is one of the most fundamental competitive
advantages. If you can build and preserve an
innovation-adept culture, a
culture of commitment, one where employees passionately pursue your
organization's
cause
and mission, you will be better
positioned for success...
More
You can find a strategic competitive advantage
in an organizational and cultural context by seeking to leverage, rather
than diminish, opposite forces. "An important but widely overlooked
principle of
The business success
is that integrating opposites, as opposed to
identifying them as
inconsistencies and driving them out, unleashes power.
This is true on both a personal level and on
organizational level as well."2 To be successful in
today's complex, rapidly changing and highly competitive world, you must
embrace and manage critical opposites...
More
Cross-Functional
Excellence
Although
innovation is driven by technology, required competence extends beyond
technical know-how. In the
new knowledge economy and
knowledge-based enterprises,
systemic innovative solutions arise from complex interactions between
many individuals, organizations and environmental factors. The boundaries
between products and services fade rapidly too. If you wish to be a
market leader today, you must be able to integrate in a balanced way
different types of know-how that would transform stand-alone technologies,
products and services into a seamless, value-rich solution...
More
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Discover much more in the FULL VERSION of e-Coach |
Five Sources of Competitive Advantage...
Competing: The Art, Science, and Practice...
Defining Your Core Competences: 3 Main Characteristics...
People as the Main Source of Competitive Advantage...
Owning Your Competitive Advantage...
Two Basic Ways to Compete and Prosper in Any Market...
Three Common Traits of Marketplace Champions...
Three Primary Sources of Distinctive Capabilities...
Leveraging the Power of Knowledge...
The Power of Connectivity...
Value Innovation...
Inclusive Approach...
Sustainable Business Models...
Sustainable Growth Strategies...
Barriers to Entry as a Source of Competitive Advantage...
Building on Your Core Competencies and Accessing Missing Ones...
Dynamic Strategy as a Source of Sustainable Competitive Advantage...
The Role of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) and Strategy...
Continuous Improvement Firm (CIF)...
Enterprise-wide Business Process Management (EBPM)...
Virtual Integration as a Source of Competitive Advantage...
Creating a Workforce that Would Provide a Competitive Advantage...
Trust as a Source of Competitive Advantage...
Tacit Knowledge as a Source of Sustainable Competitive Advantage...
Creative Leadership...
7-S Model – Organize Your Company for Competitive Advantage...
Behaving Like a Small Company...
Moving with Speed - Staying Ahead of Your Competition...
Case in Point General Electric (GE)...
Case in Point Dell Computer Corporation...
Case in Point Warren Buffet's Investment Criteria...
Case in Point
Case in Point
Case in Point
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References:
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