Nokia

* Resources and capabilities serve as a source of competitive advantage for a firm over its rival.

He suggested that sustained competitive advantage derives from the resources and capabilities a firm controls that are valuable, rare, imperfectly imitable, and not substitutable. He further added that the resources and capabilities can be viewed in form of tangible and intangible assets. There are four different categories of resources financial, physical, human, and organization.

For a business to be successful and have a competitive advantage, it is important to evaluate the company’s resources and capabilities (Pitt & Koufopoulos, 2012). Resources in a company are the productive assets owned (tangible or intangible) whereas capabilities are what the company can do with this (Grant, 2010). “Establishing competitive

The resources of an organisation are those assets that deliver value added in the organisation (Lynch, 2015). According to the resource-based view, firm performance is achieved through competitive advantage that derives from the application of resources that are valuable, rare, difficult to imitate and unable to substitute (Barney, 1991).

Nokia’s aggressive strategy to dominate mobile communication cluster would be the main reason how Nokia could become a world leader in the sector among other reasons. Nokia’s passion for mobile communication industry was great enough to give up more than 40% of its revenue in is pre-owned communication industry to concentrate only in mobile communications. Nokia was also lucky enough to see the possibility of mobile communication early enough to predominate the industry and prevent any competition from

Company gained competitive advantages through real or actual value to customers that they provided. The organizations must know their products, services, customers, competitors, industry, related industries, and environment forces in determining how IT can provide them with competitive advantage. Not to mention, they also need to have understanding about how IT can boost value for each of the areas. There are three characteristics of resources that give the firm potential in gaining competitive advantage. The three characteristics are value, rarity, and can be obtained.

Organizations gain a competitive advantage by utilizing their rare and valuable resources. These rare resources may either be tangible, such as machinery and equipment, intangible, for instance brand names, money, customer knowledge, or they may be in the form of human assets possessed by the organization. Ongoing capabilities, actions and prior investments of an organization are what give rise to resources. Moreover, resources may be relational, legal, reputational, physical, human or knowledge and informational.

• Is the resource really competitively valuable? All companies possess a collection of resources and competencies; some have the potential to contribute to a competitive advantage, while others may not.

To begin with, heterogeneity of capabilities and resources of firms, which is explained as “enduring and systematic performance differences among relatively close rivals”, provides a foundation of the resource-based view (Song, et al.,2006). The implication of this assumption is that core competence conveys the valuable and unique feature of products to customers. The RBV disagrees with the opinion that the resources are homogeneous; if homogeneity is assumed to be essential to develop a proper strategy, the strategy can be easily copied by competitors, which will ultimately result in the dissipation of above-normal rents. Conversely, the unique and fixed resources on hand will lead to outstanding performance and ultimately turn to be a competitive advantage, under the circumstances that sustainable competitive advantage is achieved in an environment where competition does not exist.

These resources generally show and direct the company of how and what to use, in order to create value and earn returns above average by methodically leveraging their resources, core competencies and capabilities to take advantages of the opportunities arising in the external environment. The role of the firm’s resources is to provide a foundation for

Competitive advantage is explained by Mahoney and Pandian (1992) as the function of industry analysis, organizational governance and the firm’s effects in the form of resource advantages and strategies. In order for a firm to be competitive it must adapt to the volatile business environment and through strategic management decisions establish a competitive advantage that will ultimately produce superior performance relative to its competitors (Akimova 2000).

In order to achieve competitive advantage, a firm must perform one or more value-creating activity that is more superior compared to other competitors. Superior value is created through lower costs or superior benefits to the buyers.

For transforming a short-run competitive advantage into a sustained competitive advantage we require resources that are heterogeneous in nature and not perfectly mobile. This translates into valuable resources that are neither perfectly imitable nor substitutable without great effort. If these conditions are fulfilled then the bundle of resources can sustain the firm's above average returns.

In conclusion, as the smartphone market is already dominated by strong competitors that command large market shares and enjoy customer loyalty, Nokia would require competitive edge by offering greater value and an effective marketing strategy to create the planned positioning in the customer’s minds, and also more creative and innovation means of communication to build better customer relationships.

The Nokia Corporation poised as the best company to choose for this assignment given its sacksful flux and innovation in the industry over time and more so, it’s captivating and inspiring history. The long successful journey of this famous corporation started by Fredrik Idestam, a mining engineer The Company kicked off as a paper mill company. With time, they diversified their activities and were involved in many sectors such as rubber boots, tires, telecommunication infrastructure, electronics and cables. Currently, the corporation is best-related to the production and distribution of wireless communication technologies.