Competitive advantage

Question 1

What is ressources

Answer 1

Tangible resources are physical assets of an organisation such as plant, labour, and finance.

Intangible resources are non-physical assets such as information, reputation, and knowledge.

Question 2

What are capabilities?

Answer 2

Capability refers to the competences and skills involved in using the resources available to
the organization (e.g. marketing capabilities, design capabilities, human resource management capabilities etc.)

Question 3

Ressource kategories

Answer 3

Physical, Financial, Human & Intellectual

Question 4

How could we define sustainable competetive advantage?

Answer 4

• Barney (1991, p. 102):
  – ”A firm is said to have a competitive advantage when it is implementing a value creating strategy not simultaneously being implemented by any current or potential competitor.”
  – ”A firm is said to have a sustained competitive advantage […] when these other firms are unable to duplicate the benefits of this strategy.”

Question 5

Core Competences Lead to Competitive Advantage When…

Answer 5

• They relate to an activity that underpins the value in the product features
• They lead to levels of performance that are significantly better than competitors
• They are difficult for competitors to imitate

Question 6

Ressource theories

Answer 6

Orchestration Theory, Resource accumulation and structuring, Resource bundling & Resource leveraging

Question 7

What are Dynamic Capabilities?

Answer 7

Dynamic capabilities are an organisation’s abilities to renew and recreate its strategic capabilities to meet the needs of a changing
environment.

Question 8

Where can you diagnose strategic capabilities?

Answer 8

Value chain, activity maps & benchmarking

Question 9

What is a Value Chain?

Answer 9

A value chain describes the categories of activities within and around an
organisation, which together create a product or service.

Question 10

What is a Value Network?

Answer 10

A value network is the set of inter- organisational links and relationships that are necessary to create a product or
service.

Question 11

What is activity maps

Answer 11

Basic hypothesis:
– Alignment/Fit between activities and functions within the organization leads to competitive advantage.
1. Consistency between each activity and the overall strategy.
2. Activities reinforce each other.
3. Optimization efforts across all activities.

Question 15

What is benchmarking

Answer 15

• Process benchmarking: compare operations, work practices, processes, systems
• Product/Service benchmarking: compare product/service features
• Strategic benchmarking: compare organizational structure, business strategies, management practice

approaches:
* Historical benchmarking (internal)
* Industry/sector benchmarking (competitors)
* Best-in-class benchmarking (outside industry)