Threats and opportunities from site

Essay text:

Imitation or substitution Market entry Powerful buyers and suppliers Unpredictable changes in external environment Factors beyond a firm's control (bad luck) Limitations of the RBV Presented as static concept - however, many firms need to be able to cope with turbulent environments Suggests that managers may have limited ability to create sustained competitive advantages (empirical support by "perpetually failing firms" - firms that consistently earn normal or below-normal returns Difficult to test empirically - data problem (at the level of the unit of analysis, Le., resources and capabilities) What is the appropriate level of analysis? How deeply does one have to look? Principles of capabilities-based competition Goal : Build difficult-to-imitate organizational capabilities that distinguish a company from its competitors Principles : o The building blocks of strategy are business processes o The transformation of processes into valuable strategic capabilities is a key to success o Capabilities are created by making strategic investments in support infrastructure o CEO must be responsible, because competing on capabilities involves cross-functionality Some lessons learned from the capabilities perspective A capability begins and ends with the customer (or supplier) The longer and more complex the string of business processes, the harder it is to transform into a capability or to duplicate or imitate Outsourcing can be dangerous A strategy for growth : Transfer essential business processes to New geographic areas (e...