ESCP Europe

Langue

English

Publication year

01/04/2009

The idea of competitive advantage has evolved over the past 30 years. Concepts such as core competence, unlocking hidden value, customer-driven focus, fast responsiveness, capabilities-driven strategy, and hyper-competition are all commonplace phrases in the business vernacular. These concepts draw from fields such as economics, industrial organization, organizational theory, and behavioral finance. A powerful force that influences firms is the nature of the product life cycle. It is important to delineate the nature of life cycle based evolution within an industry. The presence of life cycle dynamics, combined with the prospect for rapid technological change, provides the basis for understanding how firms can adapt to a variety of contexts. Strategic capabilities and organization designs that seem well suited for a particular strategic context may not translate into competitive advantage or success in another context. Firms of all types need to develop sources of competitive advantage that build upon their own unique capabilities. Consolidators, Concept Drivers, Concept Learners and Pioneers are four strategic modes that enable firms to sustain their competitiveness. Each mode demands a set of capabilities to win, but also has seeds for a firm’s destruction if managers do not pay attention to their telltale signs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)