MALIJAN, MARIA FATIMA C.

BSBA 4C

ACTIVITY #8

ANSWER:

“Time as the Next Source of Competitive Advantage”

You may have ever heard about Usain Bolt, more so if you are a sports enthusiast. I
won’t take so much time keeping you guessing who is the man that I am talking about. Boly is
the fastest man in history for setting a world record in 100 meter dash event during the 2009
World Championships in Berlin. His winning time done on August 8,2017 was 9.58 seconds, a
world record in the 100-meter dash. Of course, Bolt achieved the huge feat after spending what
seemed to be endless hours in massive build-up.
Why am I citing this sport hero when I should be talking about the subject matter on
thar is regarded as the next source of competitive advantage in business? As much as sports
and business are world apart, yet there is common denominator in the two-human endeavor.
You can never achieve excellence in sports unless you give your heart, time and effort
to preparation like what Bolt did. Bold spent much of his time preparing for the huge stage,
notably the Olympics, World Championships and the Asian Games, Bolt made sure he followed
to the letter all of training regimen outlined by his coach. Even his daily food requirements that
would make him strong and real contender. He avoided any distractions and so he was so
focused. And look, his hard work and perseverance paid off. Bolt became the toast of the world,
a sports hero to his country Jamaica.
A business ought to follow the same approach in which it will give much premium on
constantly improving every conceivable feature of the products or services that will keep the
customers satisfied, and keep the company’s competitive edge.
Bolt record time has been the benchmark in 100-meter event, and it is up for the
upcoming athletes to try to improve that clocking. To do so, future competitors ought to employ
a training program similar to that of the Jamaican runner, and yes, quality time that is without
any distractions. Quire a number of great people have been telling about the value of time in the
progress of a business, and business experts are now realizing it.
There’s no doubt these two cellphone brands had seen good days, dominating the
markets like the end wasn’t coming at all, but within pretty short space of time, they lost their
competitive edge and allowed their competitors to outperform them. What went wrong to these
once dominant cellphones brands? That’s the least we can ask of their fates.
Now, the competition has become even tighter than ever, and business experts are turning
to the time as the next source of competitive edge. Looking back to sports, a champion athlete
knows that if he is bale to run fast, he needs to run faster next time around to keep his title. In
short, an athlete must keep his speed, and if possible, boost it.
The writing on the wall is very clear that businesses across many industries are now realizing
that time is indeed a source of competitive edge. How? Simple. In running event, you
need to finish the race with the least amount of time to win. That could be true also in
 business, in manufacturing for instance. If there could be a way to simplify the process
without necessarily putting the quality in jeopardy, a business is likely to get ahead of
most competitors.
Like competition itself, competitive advantage is a constantly moving target. For any company in
any industry, the key is not to get stuck with a single simple notion of its source of advantage.
The best competitors, the most successful ones, know how to keep moving and always stay on
the cutting edge.
Today, time is on the cutting edge. The ways leading companies manage time—in production,
in new product development and introduction, in sales and distribution—represent the most
powerful new sources of competitive advantage. Though certain Western companies are
pursuing these advantages, Japanese experience and practice provide the most instructive
examples—not because they are necessarily unique but because they best illustrate the
evolutionary stages through which leading companies have advanced.

In the period immediately following World War II, Japanese companies used their low labor
costs to gain entry to various industries. As wage rates rose and technology became more
significant, the Japanese shifted first to scale-based strategies and then to focused factories to
achieve advantage. The advent of just-in-time production brought with it a move to flexible
factories, as leading Japanese companies sought both low cost and great variety in the market.
Cutting-edge Japanese companies today are capitalizing on time as a critical source of
competitive advantage: shortening the planning loop in the product development cycle and
trimming process time in the factory—managing time the way most companies manage costs,
quality, or inventory.
In fact, as a strategic weapon, time is the equivalent of money, productivity, quality, even
innovation. Managing time has enabled top Japanese companies not only to reduce their costs
but also to offer broad product lines, cover more market segments, and upgrade the
technological sophistication of their products.