Technology & Strategy GEST-D-484 Manuel Hensmans 1
Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
Technology & Strategy
GEST-D-484
Manuel Hensmans
1
Last week
• Lessons from the past for company• Sources, types/patterns, standards, timing
• Emphasise more in case-study
2
This class
• Part III: Setting the strategic direction
– Importance strategic capability
– Analyse internal resources and competences• Apply VRIN framework
– Quiz!
– If we have the time…
• Fit external position and internal capability
– 5 steps
3
Google: customer-led vs
resources and competences• Customer-led mission?
- ―to organize the world's information and
make it universally accessible and useful‖
- ―Don’t be evil‖
- Do all products map on this mission?
- Original search engine, Google Book Search /
Maps / Scholar
- Yet: sales advertising space, GoogleDocs,
Gmail, Android, Chrome,…
4
Customer-led in fast changing
environment?
• Why has Google been playing catch up
with display/banner ads?
– Although it owns the biggest information
database of all internet players
• Mission vs resources & competences!• Founders’ distrust of cookies
• CEO Schmidt less coy about exploiting resources
& competencies indiscriminately
5
When are internal resources and
competences most important?
• When the external environment is subject to rapid
change, internal resources and competences offer a
more secure basis for strategy than market focus.
• In such cases, internal resources and competences are
the primary sources of profitability
6
Resources and competences
• Resources are the assets that organisations
have or can call upon (e.g. from partners or
suppliers),that is, ‘what we have’
– tangible and intangible assets of a firm
• tangible: factories, products
• intangible: reputation
Four Categories of Resources
• Financial (cash, retained earnings)
• Physical (plant & equipment, geographic location)
• Human-intellectual (skills & abilities, patents…)
• Organizational (culture and reputation;
collective experience through
systems, routines & activities)
8
Company Valuation
ratio
Country Company Valuation
ratio
Country
Yahoo! Japan 72.0 Japan Coca-Cola 7.8 US
Colgate-Palmolive 20.8 US Diageo 7.4 UK
Glaxo Smith Kline 13.4 UK 3M 7.3 US
Anheuser-Busch 12.6 US Nokia 6.7 Finland
eBay 11.2 US Sanofi-Aventis 6.3 France
SAP 10.8 Germany AstraZeneca 5.9 UK
Yahoo! 10.7 US Johnson & Johnson 5.7 US
Dell Computer 10.0 US Boeing 5.7 US
Sumitomo Mitsui Financial 8.8 Japan Eli Lily 5.6 US
Procter & Gamble 8.4 US Cisco Systems 5.5 US
Qualcomm 8.3 US Roche Holding 5.5 Switz.
Schlumberger 8.2 US L’Oreal 5.3 France
Unilever 8.1 Neth/UK Altria 5.2 US
PepsiCo 8.0 US Novartis 5.1 Switz.9
CHECK MARKET TO BOOK VALUE
FOR YOUR COMPANY!
Firms with the Highest Ratios of Market
value to Book Value (December 2006)
Resources and competences
• Competences are the ways those assets are
used or deployed effectively, that is, what we
do well’.
– E.g. product design skill, cooperative relationships
Resources and Competences
Firm Assets:
Machinery
Collective Product Design Skill
Recruiting Skill
Engineering Skill of Individuals
Mineral Deposits
Are these resources
or competences?
?
?
?
?
?
11
Google: resources?
• User base. With about 60% of the world’s internet
searches, the Google.com website is the world’s 2nd
most visited website gives it a massive potential for
market access. Similarly its dominance of online
advertising (>30% of US online adverting revenue) gives
it a powerful position in the entire advertising sector.
• Financial resources. With its cash reserves, huge cash
flow from advertising and massive capacity for raising
debt and equity capital as a result of it huge market
capitalization, Google is well able to broaden its product
range through acquisition.
12
Google: resources?
• Human resources. Google is committed to hiring the
best and brightest. Its technical staff—software
engineers in particular—are considered among the best
in the industry.
• Culture. The Google vibrant, entrepreneurial culture
combines informality with a huge emphasis on
innovation, creativity, and initiative
13
Google: competences?
• Software development. Google’s search engine was
based upon the technical brilliance of its founders in
creating new search algorithms. Google continues to
build depth and breadth to its software engineering
capability.
• Product design. The dominance of the Google search
engine over its early rival can be attributed primarily to its
ease of use. Google continues to develop products that
are easy to use even by the users with few computer
skills.
• Entrepreneurship and innovation. As a result of its
culture, systems and people, Google shows a
tremendous capacity to generate new product ideas and
new business initiatives. 14
Bundles of resources and competences
make up strategic capabilities
Threshold and distinctive
capabilities
• Threshold capabilities are those needed for
an organisation to meet the necessary
requirements to compete in a given market
and achieve parity with competitors in that
market – ‘qualifiers’.
• Distinctive capabilities are those that
critically underpin competitive advantage and
that others cannot imitate or obtain –
‘winners’.
Threshold and distinctive
capabilities
Strategic capabilities and
competitive advantage
The four key criteria by which capabilities can be assessed in terms of providing a basis for achieving sustainable competitive advantage are:
• value
• rarity
• inimitability
• non-substitutability
VRIN framework
Criteria for the sustainability of
strategic capabilities
• in theory: Does the resource or competence
provide customer value?
• the practical: Does the resource result in an
increase in revenues, a decrease in costs, or
some combination of the two?
• distinctive or threshold?
20
Applying VRIN
V – Value of strategic capabilities
21
Exploring for crude oil
Drilling for crude oil
Pumping for crude oil
Shipping crude oil
Buying crude oil
Refining crude oil
Selling refined products to distributors
Selling refined products
to final customers
Shipping refined products
Substantial financial resources
Access to land
Scientific & technical knowledge
(human-intellectual)
Organizational commitment to risk-
taking and exploration
Uses of the value chain
• A generic description of activities –understanding the discrete activities and how they both contribute to consumer benefit and how they add to cost.
• Identifying particular strengths or weaknesses
• Analysing the competitive position of the organisation using the VRIN criteria – thus identifying sources of sustainable advantage.
• Looking for ways to enhance value or decrease cost in value activities (e.g. outsourcing)
Value chain
24
25
R – Rarity
• Rare capabilities are those possessed uniquely
by one organisation or by a few others only.
– E.g. a company may have patented products, have
supremely talented people or a powerful brand
• Rarity could be temporary
– E.g. patents expire, key individuals can leave or brands
can be de-valued by adverse publicity
Applying VRIN
I – Inimitability
Inimitable capabilities are those that competitors find difficult to imitate or obtain.
• Competitive advantage can be built on unique resources (a key individual or IT system) but these may not be sustainable (key people leave or others acquire the same systems).
• Sustainable advantage is more often found in competences (the way resources are managed,
developed and deployed) and the way competences are linked together and integrated.
Applying VRIN
Inimitability Criteria
Inimitability
strategic
capability
Social
Complexity History
Causal
ambiguity
28
Social Complexity (Monsanto & government lobbying)
• the social relationships entailed in
resources may be so complex that
managers cannot really manage them
or replicate them
The Question of Inimitability
29
Applying VRIN
Unique Historical Conditions
• first mover advantagese.g. Caterpillar
• path dependence
e.g. Qwerty standard for typewriters
The Question of Inimitability
30
Applying VRIN
The Question of Inimitability
Causal Ambiguity (Apple, Steve Jobs & product design)
• causal links between strategic capability
and competitive advantage understood?
• bundles of resources and competences fog
these causal links
31
Applying VRIN
Patents
• patents may be a two-edged sword
• offer a period of protection if the firm is
able to defend its patent rights
• required disclosure may actually decrease
the cost of imitation, and the timing
The Question of Inimitability
32
Applying VRIN
Non-substitutability
• Product or service substitution• E.g. e-mail systems vs postal systems
• No matter how VRI postal services were!
• Competence substitution
– Over-reliance on particular competences
• E.g. Kodak & chemical vs digital processes
• But Rolex vs Casio ?
33
Case Dyson
• Analyse the strategic capabilities of Dyson
in terms of threshold & distinctive
resources and competences
• Can of any of these capabilities be
imitated by competitors?
• Effect of Sir Dyson leaving company?
34
Dyson: threshold resources?
• engineering design equipment
• product supplies
• manufacturing space
• offices and facilities
• appropriate personnel
• sufficient customers (installed base)
35
Dyson: threshold competences
• general mgmt skills including distribution & marketing
• engineering design skills
• cost control through manufacturing in low-cost locations
• quality assurance and control
• the ability to attract customers sufficiently inspired by
design to pay premium prices across different markets
36
Dyson: distinctive resources
• James Dyson himself
• the Dyson brand and strategy of high-end products in an
otherwise staid market
• an HQ building and related laboratories designed to
foster innovation
• product portfolio and associated patents
• high R&D budget possibly through being privately owned
• history company used extensively in PR & advertising
• ownership of the manufacturing facilities and hence
control over the working conditions of the employees
versus other companies that contract out their
manufacturing and can be accused of supporting poor
labour conditions37
Dyson: distinctive competences
• inspirational leadership around the value of engineering
• design engineering skills that transform ideas into viable
products
• competence to make engineering aesthetically attractive
• seamless value chain despite design and manufacturing
being in different locations
• being one step ahead of competitors attracting early
adopter customers and subsequent followers including
premium pricing
• never being boring; always being surprising
38
Q2: Can Dyson’s capabilities be
imitated? • Focus on truly distinctive!
– Apply VRIN
• V: Many valuable capabilities (even threshold)
• R: Not products themselves
– Competitors have imitated products
– But: innovative culture, hands-on mgt style
• I: linked activities within Dyson / path-dependence
– What explains Dyson’s price premium?
• N: none in sight, but innovative culture could help
to protect in the future
39
Q3: departure Sir Dyson?
• Compare to Apple & Steve Jobs!
– Hands-on mgt style without Dyson?
– Aura of company that commands price
premium without Dyson?
– Ultimate source competitive advantage
• Bring exclusivity to market
– customers willing to pay more to be different and ahead
of the crowd even regarding an object as mundane as a
vacuum cleaner
40
Core Competencies
• Core Competences
– A set of integrated and harmonized abilities that distinguish the firm in the marketplace and that are hard to imitate or obtain
– Result of collective learning in the organisation,
especially how to co-ordinate diverse production skills
and integrate multiple streams of technologies.
• Competence that several business units draw on – Market focus << core competency in tech innovation
Most important distinctive competences!
1946 1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2006
Honda
Technical
Research
Institute
founded
1st motorcycle:
98cc, 2-cycle
Dream D
4 cycle
engine
405cc
motor
cycle
Power products:
ground tillers, marine
engines, generators,
pumps, chainsaws
snowblowers
First product:
Model A
clip-on engine
for bicycles
The 50cc
Supercub
N360 mini
car1000cc
Goldwing
touring
motor cycle
Acura Car
division
Competes in
Isle of Man TT
motorcycle
races
4-cylinder
750cc
motorcycle
Portable
generator
Enters Formula 1
Gran Prix racing
Honda
Civic Enters Indy
car racing
1st gasoline-powered
car to meet US Low
Emission Vehicle Standard
Civic GS
(natural
gas
powered)
Civic Hybrid
(dual gasoline/
electric)
Home co-
generation
system
Begins production of
diesel engines
Honda
wins
Indy
Champ
ionship
42
The evolution of Honda Motor Company
Precision
MechanicsFine
Optics
Micro-
Electronics
35mm SLR camera
Compact fashion camera
EOS autofocus camera
Digital camera
Video still camera
Video security systems
Camcorders
Plain-paper copier
Color copier
Color laser copier
Laser copier
Basic fax
Laser fax
Scanners
Mask aligners
Excimer laser aligners
Stepper aligners
Inkjet printer
Laser printer
Color video printer
Digital commercial
printer
Calculator
Notebook computer
Binoculars
43
Canon: Products and Core
Technical Capabilities
Group assignment
• List threshold & distinctive capabilities of
your company
• Do any of the most distinctive capabilities
qualify as core competences?
44
Quiz
• You get 10 minutes!
45
Related Documents
