BU415 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Customer Engagement, Bargaining Power, Eaves
Document Summary
Technology can be easy to copy, and technology alone rarely offers sustainable advantage. Firms that leverage technology for strategic positioning use technology to create competitive assets or ways of doing business that are difficult for others to copy. True sustainable advantage comes from assets and business models that are simultaneously valuable, rare, difficult to imitate, and for which there are no substitutes. Firms strive for sustainable competitive advantage financial performance that consistently outperforms industry averages. The reason so many firms suffer aggressive, margin-eroding competition is because they"ve defined themselves according to operational effectiveness rather than strategic positioning. Operational effectiveness performing the same task better than rivals perform them. The fast follower problem exists when savvy rivals watch a pioneer"s efforts, learn from their successes and missteps, then enter the market quickly with a comparable or superior product at a lower cost. Firms must invest in techniques to improve quality, lower cost, and design efficient customer experiences.
