COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

 Competitive advantage is the advantage that accrues to a firm by virtue of

its superior products or services or assets possessed.
 Competitive advantage is the advantage that an organization has over and
above its competitors.
 Competitive advantage is something that the competing firms are not able to
do, but the organization has the capability to do.
 It may be something owned by the firm that the rivals wish to have.
 It enables an organization to reap more profits and growth as compared to
its competitors.
 It is the benefit that keeps an organization one step ahead of competitors.
 An organization is said to have competitive advantage if its profitability is
higher than the average profitability for all companies in the industry.
 According to Michael Porter, an organization can gain and sustain
competitive advantage through 3 strategies-viz.(i)Cost Leadership Strategy
(ii)Product Differentiation Strategy and (iii)Focus Strategy

CORE COMPETENCE/CORE COMPETENCY

 Core competency is the proficiency of an organization, which is
distinguished and can not be imitated by the rivals.
 C K Prahlad & Gary Hamel have advocated the concept of core competency
 It is the fundamental strength /capabilities of an organization
 It is a major source of attaining competitive advantage and identifies the
areas that an organization must focus.
 It is the unique combination of resources, skills and knowledge, which
differentiates an organization in the market.
 It is mostly gained by a set of skills that an organization possesses, which
provides strength to the organization. It helps to deliver satisfaction to the
customers.
 It provides access to a number of markets.
 It helps in overcoming rivals.
 It provides expected value to customers.
 An organization`s core competency can be in any of the following areas:-
Financial competency-Marketing competency –Personnel competency –
Operational competency –Management competency -Data handling
competency etc.
RESOURCE BASED VIEW:
Resource Based View is a view that holds that human resources contribute to
sustained competitive advantage for a firm when they are valuable, rare, non-
tradable, non imitable, and non-substitutable. This view is popularly called VRIO
framework.