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Strategic Capability

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“An internal capacity for leveraging resources and competences is a prerequisite for creating competitive advantage. Discuss, with references to theory and real world organization of your choice”. Strategic management is a multi faced and vast area of study with many theorists presenting differing views as to what is crucial to the successful formulation of strategy. This essay will present an explanation of the internal capacity of leveraging resources and competences and show how they are creating competitive advantage. This will be illustrated through the identification of the key drivers of competitive advantage. A strategic capability analysis of an organisation, namely Marks and Spencer. will be undertaken in order to identify …show more content…

Furthermore, according to Michael E. Porter: ‘Strategy is the creation of a unique and valuable position, involving a different set of activities. The essence of strategic positioning is to choose activities that are different from rivals’. (M. E. Porter, Harvard Review) However, creating sustaining competitive advantage in business is not just uniqueness or being different. While well-built core competencies and competitive capabilities are key support in performing strategy, they are just as significant for securing a competitive edge over competitors in position where it is quite easy for rivals to copy smart strategies. Thomson et al (2004) states that: ‘Any time rivals can readily duplicate successful strategy features, making it difficult or impossible to out strategize rivals and beat them in the marketplace with a superior strategy, the chief way to achieve lasting competitive advantage is to out execute them.’ (Thomson et al, 2004:254) Moreover, it is very hard to create a strategy which nobody could copy and that the strategy would last long term. Usually, the core competence or capability emerges incrementally. As Johnson et al (2005) illustrates in The Risk of Strategic Drift. This is understood as step by step changes. What was working in the past, will be working in the future. There are no significant changes in the existing strategy. Johnson et al uses the study of strategic lenses and suggest that: ‘Experience lens views strategy development

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