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CHAPTER 4
Evaluating a Company’s Resources, Capabilities, and Competitiveness
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Learning Objectives THIS CHAPTER WILL HELP YOU UNDERSTAND:
LO 1 How to take stock of how well a company’s strategy is working.
LO 2 Why a company’s resources and capabilities are centrally important in giving the company a competitive edge over rivals.
LO 3 How to assess the company’s strengths and weaknesses in light of market opportunities and external threats.
LO 4 How a company’s value chain activities can affect the company’s cost structure and customer value proposition.
LO 5 How a comprehensive evaluation of a company’s competitive situation can assist managers in making critical decisions about their next strategic moves.
Crucial, of course, is having a difference that matters in the industry.
Cynthia Montgomery—Professor and author
If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete
Jack Welch—Former CEO of General Electric
Organizations succeed in a competitive marketplace over the long run because they can do certain things their customers value better than can their competitors.
Robert Hayes, Gary Pisano, and David Upton—-Professors and consultants
Chapter 3 described how to use the tools of industry and competitor analysis to assess a company’s external environment and lay the groundwork for matching a company’s strategy to its external situation. This chapter discusses techniques for evaluating a company’s internal situation, including its collection of resources and capabilities and the activities it performs along its value chain. Internal analysis enables managers to determine whether their strategy is likely to give the company a significant competitive edge over rival firms. Combined with external analysis, it facilitates an understanding of how to reposition a firm to take advantage of new opportunities and to cope with emerging competitive threats. The analytic spotlight will be trained on six questions:
1. How well is the company’s present strategy working? 2. What are the company’s most important resources and capabilities, and will they give the company a
lasting competitive advantage over rival companies? 3. What are the company’s strengths and weaknesses in relation to the market opportunities and
external threats? 4. How do a company’s value chain activities impact its cost structure and customer value proposition? 5. Is the company competitively stronger or weaker than key rivals? 6. What strategic issues and problems merit front-burner managerial attention?
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In probing for answers to these questions, five analytic tools—resource and capability analysis, SWOT analysis, value chain analysis, benchmarking, and competitive strength assessment—will be used. All five are valuable techniques for revealing a company’s competitiveness and for helping company managers match their strategy to the company’s particular circumstances.
QUESTION 1: HOW WELL IS THE COMPANY’S PRESENT STRATEGY WORKING?
LO 1 How to take stock of how well a company’s strategy is working.
In evaluating how well a company’s present strategy is working, the best way to start is with a clear view of what the strategy entails. Figure 4.1 shows the key components of a single-business company’s strategy. The first thing to examine is the company’s competitive approach. What moves has the company made recently to attract customers and improve its market position—for instance, has it cut prices, improved the design of its product, added new features, stepped up advertising, entered a new geographic market, or merged with a competitor? Is it striving for a competitive advantage based on low costs or a better product offering? Is it concentrating on serving a broad spectrum of customers or a narrow market niche? The company’s functional strategies in R&D, production, marketing, finance, human resources, information technology, and so on further characterize company strategy, as do any efforts to establish alliances with other enterprises.
FIGURE 4.1 Identifying the Components of a Single-Business Company’s Strategy
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The three best indicators of how well a company’s strategy is working are (1) whether the company is achieving its stated financial and strategic objectives, (2) whether its financial performance is above the industry average, and (3) whether it is gaining customers and gaining market share. Persistent shortfalls in meeting company performance targets and weak marketplace performance relative to rivals are reliable warning signs that the company has a weak strategy, suffers from poor strategy execution, or both. Specific indicators of how well a company’s strategy is working include:
• Trends in the company’s sales and earnings growth. • Trends in the company’s stock price. • The company’s overall financial strength. • The company’s customer retention rate. • The rate at which new customers are acquired. • Evidence of improvement in internal processes such as defect rate, order fulfillment,
delivery times, days of inventory, and employee productivity.
Sluggish financial performance and second-rate market accomplishments almost always signal weak strategy, weak execution, or both.
The stronger a company’s current overall performance, the more likely it has a well-conceived, well- executed strategy. The weaker a company’s financial performance and market standing, the more its current strategy must be questioned and the more likely the need for radical changes. Table 4.1 provides
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a compilation of the financial ratios most commonly used to evaluate a company’s financial performance and balance sheet strength.
TABLE 4.1 Key Financial Ratios: How to Calculate Them and What They Mean
Ratio How Calculated What It Shows
Profitability ratios
1. Gross profit margin Shows the percentage of
revenues available to cover operating expenses and yield a profit.
2. Operating profit margin (or return on sales)
Shows the profitability of current operations without regard to interest charges and income taxes. Earnings before interest and taxes is known as EBIT in financial and business accounting.
3. Net profit margin (or net return on sales)
Shows after-tax profits per dollar of sales.
4. Total return on assets A measure of the return on
total investment in the enterprise. Interest is added to after-tax profits to form the numerator, since total assets are
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Ratio How Calculated What It Shows
financed by creditors as well as by stockholders.
5. Net return on total assets (ROA)
A measure of the return earned by stockholders on the firm’s total assets.
6. Return on stockholders’ equity (ROE)
The return stockholders are earning on their capital investment in the enterprise. A return in the 12%–15% range is average.
7. Return on invested capital (ROIC) —sometimes referred to as return on capital employed (ROCE)
A measure of the return that shareholders are earning on the monetary capital invested in the enterprise. A higher return reflects greater bottom-line effectiveness in the use of long- term capital.
Liquidity ratios
1. Current ratio Shows a firm’s ability to pay
current liabilities using assets that can be converted to
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Ratio How Calculated What It Shows
cash in the near term. Ratio should be higher than 1.0.
2. Working capital
Current assets – Current liabilities The cash available for a firm’s day-to-day operations. Larger amounts mean the company has more internal funds to (1) pay its current liabilities on a timely basis and (2) finance inventory expansion, additional accounts receivable, and a larger base of operations without resorting to borrowing or raising more equity capital.
Leverage ratios
1. Total debt- to-assets ratio
Measures the extent to which borrowed funds (both short-term loans and long- term debt) have been used to finance the firm’s operations. A low ratio is better—a high fraction indicates overuse of debt
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Ratio How Calculated What It Shows
and greater risk of bankruptcy.
2. Long-term debt-to- capital ratio
A measure of creditworthiness and balance sheet strength. It indicates the percentage of capital investment that has been financed by both long-term lenders and stockholders. A ratio below 0.25 is preferable since the lower the ratio, the greater the capacity to borrow additional funds. Debt-to-capital ratios above 0.50 indicate an excessive reliance on long- term borrowing, lower creditworthiness, and weak balance sheet strength.
3. Debt-to- equity ratio Shows the balance
between debt (funds borrowed both short term and long term) and the amount that stockholders have invested in the enterprise. The further the ratio is below 1.0, the greater
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Ratio How Calculated What It Shows
the firm’s ability to borrow additional funds. Ratios above 1.0 put creditors at greater risk, signal weaker balance sheet strength, and often result in lower credit ratings.
4. Long-term debt-to- equity ratio
Shows the balance between long- term debt and stockholders’ equity in the firm’s long-term capital structure. Low ratios indicate a greater capacity to borrow additional funds if needed.
5. Times- interest- earned (or coverage) ratio
Measures the ability to pay annual interest charges. Lenders usually insist on a minimum ratio of 2.0, but ratios above 3.0 signal progressively better creditworthiness.
Activity ratios
1. Days of inventory Measures inventory
management efficiency. Fewer
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Ratio How Calculated What It Shows
days of inventory are better.
2. Inventory turnover Measures the number of
inventory turns per year. Higher is better.
3. Average collection period
Indicates the average length of time the firm must wait after making a sale to receive cash payment. A shorter collection time is better.
Other important measures of financial performance
1. Dividend yield on common stock
A measure of the return that shareholders receive in the form of dividends. A “typical” dividend yield is 2%–3%. The dividend yield for fast-growth companies is often below 1%; the dividend yield for slow- growth companies can run 4%–5%.
2. Price-to- earnings (P/E) ratio
P/E ratios above 20 indicate strong investor confidence in a firm’s outlook
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Ratio How Calculated What It Shows
and earnings growth; firms whose future earnings are at risk or likely to grow slowly typically have ratios below 12.
3. Dividend payout ratio Indicates the percentage of
after-tax profits paid out as dividends.
4. Internal cash flow
After-tax profits + Depreciation A rough estimate of the cash a company’s business is generating after payment of operating expenses, interest, and taxes. Such amounts can be used for dividend payments or funding capital expenditures.
5. Free cash flow
After- tax profits + Depreciation – Capital expenditures – Dividends A rough
estimate of the cash a company’s business is generating after payment of operating expenses, interest, taxes, dividends, and desirable reinvestments in the business. The larger a company’s free
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Ratio How Calculated What It Shows
cash flow, the greater its ability to internally fund new strategic initiatives, repay debt, make new acquisitions, repurchase shares of stock, or increase dividend payments.
QUESTION 2: WHAT ARE THE COMPANY’S MOST IMPORTANT RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES, AND WILL THEY GIVE THE COMPANY A LASTING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE OVER RIVAL COMPANIES?
An essential element of deciding whether a company’s overall situation is fundamentally healthy or unhealthy entails examining the attractiveness of its resources and capabilities. A company’s resources and capabilities are its competitive assets and determine whether its competitive power in the marketplace will be impressively strong or disappointingly weak. Companies with second-rate competitive assets nearly always are relegated to a trailing position in the industry.
CORE CONCEPT A company’s resources and capabilities represent its competitive assets and are determinants of its competitiveness and ability to succeed in the marketplace.
Resource and capability analysis provides managers with a powerful tool for sizing up the company’s competitive assets and determining whether they can provide the foundation necessary for competitive success in the marketplace. This is a two-step process. The first step is to identify the company’s resources and capabilities. The second step is to examine them more closely to ascertain which are the most competitively important and whether they can support a sustainable competitive advantage over rival firms.1 This second step involves applying the four tests of a resource’s competitive power.
Resource and capability analysis is a powerful tool for sizing up a company’s competitive assets and determining whether the assets can support a sustainable competitive advantage over market rivals.
Identifying the Company’s Resources and Capabilities
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A firm’s resources and capabilities are the fundamental building blocks of its competitive strategy. In crafting strategy, it is essential for managers to know how to take stock of the company’s full complement of resources and capabilities. But before they can do so, managers and strategists need a more precise definition of these terms.
LO 2 Why a company’s resources and capabilities are centrally important in giving the company a competitive edge over rivals.
In brief, a resource is a productive input or competitive asset that is owned or controlled by the firm. Firms have many different types of resources at their disposal that vary not only in kind but in quality as well. Some are of a higher quality than others, and some are more competitively valuable, having greater potential to give a firm a competitive advantage over its rivals. For example, a company’s brand is a resource, as is an R&D team—yet some brands such as Coca-Cola and Xerox are well known, with enduring value, while others have little more name recognition than generic products. In similar fashion, some R&D teams are far more innovative and productive than others due to the outstanding talents of the individual team members, the team’s composition, its experience, and its chemistry.
A capability (or competence) is the capacity of a firm to perform some internal activity competently. Capabilities or competences also vary in form, quality, and competitive importance, with some being more competitively valuable than others. American Express displays superior capabilities in brand management and marketing; Starbucks’s employee management, training, and real estate capabilities are the drivers behind its rapid growth; LinkedIn relies on superior software innovation capabilities to increase new user memberships. Organizational capabilities are developed and enabled through the deployment of a company’s resources.2 For example, Nestlé’s brand management capabilities for its 2,000+ food, beverage, and pet care brands draw on the knowledge of the company’s brand managers, the expertise of its marketing department, and the company’s relationships with retailers in nearly 200 countries. W. L. Gore’s product innovation capabilities in its fabrics and medical and industrial product businesses result from the personal initiative, creative talents, and technological expertise of its associates and the company’s culture that encourages accountability and creative thinking.
CORE CONCEPT A resource is a competitive asset that is owned or controlled by a company; a capability (or competence) is the capacity of a firm to perform some internal activity competently. Capabilities are developed and enabled through the deployment of a company’s resources.
Types of Company Resources A useful way to identify a company’s resources is to look for them within categories, as shown in Table 4.2. Broadly speaking, resources can be divided into two main categories: tangible and intangible resources. Although human resources make up one of the most important parts of a company’s resource base, we include them in the intangible category to emphasize the role played by the skills, talents, and knowledge of a company’s human resources.
Table 4.2 Types of Company Resources
Tangible resources
• Physical resources: land and real estate; manufacturing plants, equipment, and/or distribution facilities; the locations of stores, plants, or distribution centers, including the overall pattern of
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Tangible resources
their physical locations; ownership of or access rights to natural resources (such as mineral deposits)
• Financial resources: cash and cash equivalents; marketable securities; other financial assets such as a company’s credit rating and borrowing capacity
• Technological assets: patents, copyrights, production technology, innovation technologies, technological processes
• Organizational resources: IT and communication systems (satellites, servers, workstations, etc.); other planning, coordination, and control systems; the company’s organizational design and reporting structure
Intangible resources
• Human assets and intellectual capital: the education, experience, knowledge, and talent of the workforce, cumulative learning, and tacit knowledge of employees; collective learning embedded in the organization, the intellectual capital and know-how of specialized teams and work groups; the knowledge of key personnel concerning important business functions; managerial talent and leadership skill; the creativity and innovativeness of certain personnel
• Brands, company image, and reputational assets: brand names, trademarks, product or company image, buyer loyalty and goodwill; company reputation for quality, service, and reliability; reputation with suppliers and partners for fair dealing
• Relationships: alliances, joint ventures, or partnerships that provide access to technologies, specialized know-how, or geographic markets; networks of dealers or distributors; the trust established with various partners
• Company culture and incentive system: the norms of behavior, business principles, and ingrained beliefs within the company; the attachment of personnel to the company’s ideals; the compensation system and the motivation level of company personnel
Tangible resources are the most easily identified, since tangible resources are those that can be touched or quantified readily. Obviously, they include various types of physical resources such as manufacturing facilities and mineral resources, but they also include a company’s financial resources, technological resources, and organizational resources such as the company’s communication and control systems. Note that technological resources are included among tangible resources, by convention, even though some types, such as copyrights and trade secrets, might be more logically categorized as intangible.
Intangible resources are harder to discern, but they are often among the most important of a firm’s competitive assets. They include various sorts of human assets and intellectual capital, as well as a
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company’s brands, image, and reputational assets. While intangible resources have no material existence on their own, they are often embodied in something material. Thus, the skills and knowledge resources of a firm are embodied in its managers and employees; a company’s brand name is embodied in the company logo or product labels. Other important kinds of intangible resources include a company’s relationships with suppliers, buyers, or partners of various sorts, and the company’s culture and incentive system. A more detailed listing of the various types of tangible and intangible resources is provided in Table 4.2.
Listing a company’s resources category by category can prevent managers from inadvertently overlooking some company resources that might be competitively important. At times, it can be difficult to decide exactly how to categorize certain types of resources. For example, resources such as a work group’s specialized expertise in developing innovative products can be considered to be technological assets or human assets or intellectual capital and knowledge assets; the work ethic and drive of a company’s workforce could be included under the company’s human assets or its culture and incentive system. In this regard, it is important to remember that it is not exactly how a resource is categorized that matters but, rather, that all of the company’s different types of resources are included in the inventory. The real purpose of using categories in identifying a company’s resources is to ensure that none of a company’s resources go unnoticed when sizing up the company’s competitive assets.
Identifying Capabilities Organizational capabilities are more complex entities than resources; indeed, they are built up through the use of resources and draw on some combination of the firm’s resources as they are exercised. Virtually all organizational capabilities are knowledge-based, residing in people and in a company’s intellectual capital, or in organizational processes and systems, which embody tacit knowledge. For example, Amazon’s speedy delivery capabilities rely on the knowledge of its fulfillment center managers, its relationship with the United Postal Service, and the experience of its merchandisers to correctly predict inventory flow. Bose’s capabilities in auditory system design arise from the talented engineers that form the R&D team as well as the company’s strong culture, which celebrates innovation and beautiful design.
Because of their complexity, capabilities are harder to categorize than resources and more challenging to search for as a result. There are, however, two approaches that can make the process of uncovering and identifying a firm’s capabilities more systematic. The first method takes the completed listing of a firm’s resources as its starting point. Since capabilities are built from resources and utilize resources as they are exercised, a firm’s resources can provide a strong set of clues about the types of capabilities the firm is likely to have accumulated. This approach simply involves looking over the firm’s resources and considering whether (and to what extent) the firm has built up any related capabilities. So, for example, a fleet of trucks, the latest RFID tracking technology, and a set of large automated distribution centers may be indicative of sophisticated capabilities in logistics and distribution. R&D teams composed of top scientists with expertise in genomics may suggest organizational capabilities in developing new gene therapies or in biotechnology more generally.
The second method of identifying a firm’s capabilities takes a functional approach. Many capabilities relate to fairly specific functions; these draw on a limited set of resources and typically involve a single department or organizational unit. Capabilities in injection molding or continuous casting or metal stamping are manufacturing-related; capabilities in direct selling, promotional pricing, or database marketing all connect to the sales and marketing functions; capabilities in basic research, strategic innovation, or new product development link to a company’s R&D function. This approach requires managers to survey the various functions a firm performs to find the different capabilities associated with each function.
A problem with this second method is that many of the most important capabilities of firms are inherently cross-functional. Cross-functional capabilities draw on a number of different kinds of resources and are multidimensional in nature—they spring from the effective collaboration among people with different types of expertise working in different organizational units. Warby Parker draws from its cross- functional design process to create its popular eyewear. Its design capabilities are not just due to its creative designers, but are the product of their capabilities in market research and engineering as well as their relations with suppliers and manufacturing companies. Cross-functional capabilities and other complex capabilities involving numerous linked and closely integrated competitive assets are sometimes referred to as resource bundles.
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CORE CONCEPT A resource bundle is a linked and closely integrated set of competitive assets centered around one or more cross-functional capabilities.
It is important not to miss identifying a company’s resource bundles, since they can be the most competitively important of a firm’s competitive assets. Resource bundles can sometimes pass the four tests of a resource’s competitive power (described below) even when the individual components of the resource bundle cannot. Although PetSmart’s supply chain and marketing capabilities are matched well by rival Petco, the company has and continues to outperform competitors through its customer service capabilities (including animal grooming and veterinary and day care services). Nike’s bundle of styling expertise, marketing research skills, professional endorsements, brand name, and managerial know-how has allowed it to remain number one in the athletic footwear and apparel industry for more than 20 years.
Assessing the Competitive Power of a Company’s Resources and Capabilities To assess a company’s competitive power, one must go beyond merely identifying its resources and capabilities to probe its caliber.3 Thus, the second step in resource and capability analysis is designed to ascertain which of a company’s resources and capabilities are competitively superior and to what extent they can support a company’s quest for a sustainable competitive advantage over market rivals. When a company has competitive assets that are central to its strategy and superior to those of rival firms, they can support a competitive advantage, as defined in Chapter 1. If this advantage proves durable despite the best efforts of competitors to overcome it, then the company is said to have a sustainable competitive advantage. While it may be difficult for a company to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage, it is an important strategic objective because it imparts a potential for attractive and long- lived profitability.
The Four Tests of a Resource’s Competitive Power The competitive power of a resource or capability is measured by how many of four specific tests it can pass.4 These tests are referred to as the VRIN tests for sustainable competitive advantage—VRIN is a shorthand reminder standing for Valuable, Rare, Inimitable, and Nonsubstitutable. The first two tests determine whether a resource or capability can support a competitive advantage. The last two determine whether the competitive advantage can be sustained.
CORE CONCEPT The VRIN tests for sustainable competitive advantage ask whether a resource is valuable, rare, inimitable, and nonsubstitutable.
1. Is the resource or capability competitively Valuable? To be competitively valuable, a resource or capability must be directly relevant to the company’s strategy, making the company a more effective competitor. Unless the resource or capability contributes to the effectiveness of the company’s strategy, it cannot pass this first test. An indicator of its effectiveness is whether the resource enables the company to strengthen its business model by improving its customer value proposition and/or profit formula (see Chapter 1). Companies have to guard against contending that something they do well is necessarily competitively valuable. Apple’s OS X operating system for its personal computers
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by some accounts is superior to Microsoft’s Windows 10, but Apple has failed in converting its resources devoted to operating system design into anything more than moderate competitive success in the global PC market.
2. Is the resource or capability Rare—is it something rivals lack? Resources and capabilities that are common among firms and widely available cannot be a source of competitive advantage. All makers of branded cereals have valuable marketing capabilities and brands, since the key success factors in the ready-to-eat cereal industry demand this. They are not rare. However, the brand strength of Oreo cookies is uncommon and has provided Kraft Foods with greater market share as well as the opportunity to benefit from brand extensions such as Double Stuf Oreos and Mini Oreos. A resource or capability is considered rare if it is held by only a small number of firms in an industry or specific competitive domain. Thus, while general management capabilities are not rare in an absolute sense, they are relatively rare in some of the less developed regions of the world and in some business domains.
3. Is the resource or capability Inimitable—is it hard to copy? The more difficult and more costly it is for competitors to imitate a company’s resource or capability, the more likely that it can also provide a sustainable competitive advantage. Resources and capabilities tend to be difficult to copy when they are unique (a fantastic real estate location, patent-protected technology, an unusually talented and motivated labor force), when they must be built over time in ways that are difficult to imitate (a well- known brand name, mastery of a complex process technology, years of cumulative experience and learning), and when they entail financial outlays or large-scale operations that few industry members can undertake (a global network of dealers and distributors). Imitation is also difficult for resources and capabilities that reflect a high level of social complexity (company culture, interpersonal relationships among the managers or R&D teams, trust-based relations with customers or suppliers) and causal ambiguity, a term that signifies the hard-to-disentangle nature of the complex resources, such as a web of intricate processes enabling new drug discovery. Hard-to-copy resources and capabilities are important competitive assets, contributing to the longevity of a company’s market position and offering the potential for sustained profitability.
4. Is the resource or capability Nonsubstitutable—is it invulnerable to the threat of substitution from different types of resources and capabilities? Even resources that are competitively valuable, rare, and costly to imitate may lose much of their ability to offer competitive advantage if rivals possess equivalent substitute resources. For example, manufacturers relying on automation to gain a cost- based advantage in production activities may find their technology-based advantage nullified by rivals’ use of low-wage offshore manufacturing. Resources can contribute to a sustainable competitive advantage only when resource substitutes aren’t on the horizon.
CORE CONCEPT Social complexity and causal ambiguity are two factors that inhibit the ability of rivals to imitate a firm’s most valuable resources and capabilities. Causal ambiguity makes it very hard to figure out how a complex resource contributes to competitive advantage and therefore exactly what to imitate.
The vast majority of companies are not well endowed with standout resources or capabilities, capable of passing all four tests with high marks. Most firms have a mixed bag of resources—one or two quite valuable, some good, many satisfactory to mediocre. Resources and capabilities that are valuable pass the first of the four tests. As key contributors to the effectiveness of the strategy, they are relevant to the firm’s competitiveness but are no guarantee of competitive advantage. They may offer no more than competitive parity with competing firms.
Passing both of the first two tests requires more—it requires resources and capabilities that are not only valuable but also rare. This is a much higher hurdle that can be cleared only by resources and capabilities that are competitively superior. Resources and capabilities that are competitively superior are the company’s true strategic assets. They provide the company with a competitive advantage over its competitors, if only in the short run.
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To pass the last two tests, a resource must be able to maintain its competitive superiority in the face of competition. It must be resistant to imitative attempts and efforts by competitors to find equally valuable substitute resources. Assessing the availability of substitutes is the most difficult of all the tests since substitutes are harder to recognize, but the key is to look for resources or capabilities held by other firms or being developed that can serve the same function as the company’s core resources and capabilities.5
Very few firms have resources and capabilities that can pass all four tests, but those that do enjoy a sustainable competitive advantage with far greater profit potential. Costco is a notable example, with strong employee incentive programs and capabilities in supply chain management that have surpassed those of its warehouse club rivals for over 35 years. Lincoln Electric Company, less well known but no less notable in its achievements, has been the world leader in welding products for over 100 years as a result of its unique piecework incentive system for compensating production workers and the unsurpassed worker productivity and product quality that this system has fostered.
A Company’s Resources and Capabilities Must Be Managed Dynamically Even companies like Costco and Lincoln Electric cannot afford to rest on their laurels. Rivals that are initially unable to replicate a key resource may develop better and better substitutes over time. Resources and capabilities can depreciate like other assets if they are managed with benign neglect. Disruptive changes in technology, customer preferences, distribution channels, or other competitive factors can also destroy the value of key strategic assets, turning resources and capabilities “from diamonds to rust.”6
A company requires a dynamically evolving portfolio of resources and capabilities to sustain its competitiveness and help drive improvements in its performance.
Resources and capabilities must be continually strengthened and nurtured to sustain their competitive power and, at times, may need to be broadened and deepened to allow the company to position itself to pursue emerging market opportunities.7 Organizational resources and capabilities that grow stale can impair competitiveness unless they are refreshed, modified, or even phased out and replaced in response to ongoing market changes and shifts in company strategy. Management’s challenge in managing the firm’s resources and capabilities dynamically has two elements: (1) attending to the ongoing modification of existing competitive assets, and (2) casting a watchful eye for opportunities to develop totally new kinds of capabilities.
CORE CONCEPT A dynamic capability is an ongoing capacity of a company to modify its existing resources and capabilities or create new ones.
The Role of Dynamic Capabilities Companies that know the importance of recalibrating and upgrading their most valuable resources and capabilities ensure that these activities are done on a continual basis. By incorporating these activities into their routine managerial functions, they gain the experience necessary to be able to do them consistently well. At that point, their ability to freshen and renew their competitive assets becomes a capability in itself—a dynamic capability. A dynamic capability is the ability to modify, deepen, or augment the company’s existing resources and capabilities.8 This includes the capacity to improve existing resources and capabilities incrementally, in the way that Toyota aggressively upgrades the company’s capabilities in fuel-efficient hybrid engine technology and constantly fine-tunes its famed Toyota production system. Likewise, management at BMW developed new organizational capabilities in hybrid engine design that allowed the company to launch its highly touted i3 and i8 plug-in hybrids. A dynamic capability also includes the capacity to add new resources and capabilities to the company’s competitive asset portfolio.
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One way to do this is through alliances and acquisitions. An example is Bristol-Meyers Squibb’s famed “string of pearls” acquisition capabilities, which have enabled it to replace degraded resources such as expiring patents with new patents and newly acquired capabilities in drug discovery for new disease domains.
QUESTION 3: WHAT ARE THE COMPANY’S STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES IN RELATION TO THE MARKET OPPORTUNITIES AND EXTERNAL THREATS?
LO 3 How to assess the company’s strengths and weaknesses in light of market opportunities and external threats.
In evaluating a company’s overall situation, a key question is whether the company is in a position to pursue attractive market opportunities and defend against external threats to its future well-being. The simplest and most easily applied tool for conducting this examination is widely known as SWOT analysis, so named because it zeros in on a company’s internal Strengths and Weaknesses, market Opportunities, and external Threats. A first-rate SWOT analysis provides the basis for crafting a strategy that capitalizes on the company’s strengths, overcomes its weaknesses, aims squarely at capturing the company’s best opportunities, and defends against competitive and macro-environmental threats.
SWOT analysis is a simple but powerful tool for sizing up a company’s strengths and weaknesses, its market opportunities, and the external threats to its future well-being.
Identifying a Company’s Internal Strengths A strength is something a company is good at doing or an attribute that enhances its competitiveness in the marketplace. A company’s strengths depend on the quality of its resources and capabilities. Resource and capability analysis provides a way for managers to assess the quality objectively. While resources and capabilities that pass the VRIN tests of sustainable competitive advantage are among the company’s greatest strengths, other types can be counted among the company’s strengths as well. A capability that is not potent enough to produce a sustainable advantage over rivals may yet enable a series of temporary advantages if used as a basis for entry into a new market or market segment. A resource bundle that fails to match those of top-tier competitors may still allow a company to compete successfully against the second tier.
Basing a company’s strategy on its most competitively valuable strengths gives the company its best chance for market success.
Assessing a Company’s Competencies—What Activities Does It Perform Well? One way to appraise the degree of a company’s strengths has to do with the company’s skill level in performing key pieces of its business—such as supply chain management, R&D, production, distribution, sales and marketing, and customer service. A company’s skill or proficiency in performing different facets of its operations can range from the extreme of having minimal ability to perform an activity (perhaps having just struggled to do it the first time) to the other extreme of being able to perform the activity better than any other company in the industry.
When a company’s proficiency rises from that of mere ability to perform an activity to the point of being able to perform it consistently well and at acceptable cost, it is said to have a competence—a true capability, in other words. If a company’s competence level in some
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activity domain is superior to that of its rivals it is known as a distinctive competence. A core competence is a proficiently performed internal activity that is central to a company’s strategy and is typically distinctive as well. A core competence is a more competitively valuable strength than a competence because of the activity’s key role in the company’s strategy and the contribution it makes to the company’s market success and profitability. Often, core competencies can be leveraged to create new markets or new product demand, as the engine behind a company’s growth. Procter and Gamble has a core competence in brand management, which has led to an ever increasing portfolio of market- leading consumer products, including Charmin, Tide, Crest, Tampax, Olay, Febreze, Luvs, Pampers, and Swiffer. Nike has a core competence in designing and marketing innovative athletic footwear and sports apparel. Kellogg has a core competence in developing, producing, and marketing breakfast cereals.
CORE CONCEPT A competence is an activity that a company has learned to perform with proficiency.
A distinctive competence is a capability that enables a company to perform a particular set of activities better than its rivals.
CORE CONCEPT A core competence is an activity that a company performs proficiently and that is also central to its strategy and competitive success.
Identifying Company Weaknesses and Competitive Deficiencies A weakness, or competitive deficiency, is something a company lacks or does poorly (in comparison to others) or a condition that puts it at a disadvantage in the marketplace. A company’s internal weaknesses can relate to (1) inferior or unproven skills, expertise, or intellectual capital in competitively important areas of the business; (2) deficiencies in competitively important physical, organizational, or intangible assets; or (3) missing or competitively inferior capabilities in key areas. Company weaknesses are thus internal shortcomings that constitute competitive liabilities. Nearly all companies have competitive liabilities of one kind or another. Whether a company’s internal weaknesses make it competitively vulnerable depends on how much they matter in the marketplace and whether they are offset by the company’s strengths.
CORE CONCEPT A company’s strengths represent its competitive assets; its weaknesses are shortcomings that constitute competitive liabilities.
Table 4.3 lists many of the things to consider in compiling a company’s strengths and weaknesses. Sizing up a company’s complement of strengths and deficiencies is akin to constructing a strategic balance sheet, where strengths represent competitive assets and weaknesses represent competitive liabilities. Obviously, the ideal condition is for the company’s competitive assets to outweigh its competitive liabilities by an ample margin—a 50–50 balance is definitely not the desired condition!
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Table 4.3 What to Look for in Identifying a Company’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
Potential Strengths and Competitive Assets Potential Weaknesses and Competitive Deficiencies
• Competencies that are well matched to industry key success factors
• Ample financial resources to grow the business • Strong brand-name image and/or company
reputation • Economies of scale and/or learning- and
experience-curve advantages over rivals • Other cost advantages over rivals • Attractive customer base • Proprietary technology, superior technological
skills, important patents • Strong bargaining power over suppliers or buyers • Resources and capabilities that are valuable and
rare • Resources and capabilities that are hard to copy
and for which there are no good substitutes • Superior product quality • Wide geographic coverage and/or strong global
distribution capability • Alliances and/or joint ventures that provide access
to valuable technology, competencies, and/or attractive geographic markets
• No clear strategic vision • No well-developed or proven core competencies • No distinctive competencies or competitively
superior resources • Lack of attention to customer needs • A product or service with features and attributes
that are inferior to those of rivals • Weak balance sheet, insufficient financial
resources to grow the firm • Too much debt • Higher overall unit costs relative to those of key
competitors • Too narrow a product line relative to rivals • Weak brand image or reputation • Weaker dealer network than key rivals and/or
lack of adequate distribution capability • Lack of management depth • A plague of internal operating problems or
obsolete facilities • Too much underutilized plant capacity • Resources that are readily copied or for which
there are good substitutes
Potential Market Opportunities Potential External Threats to a Company’s Future Profitability
• Meeting sharply rising buyer demand for the industry’s product
• Serving additional customer groups or market segments
• Expanding into new geographic markets • Expanding the company’s product line to meet a
broader range of customer needs • Utilizing existing company skills or technological
know-how to enter new product lines or new businesses
• Taking advantage of falling trade barriers in attractive foreign markets
• Taking advantage of an adverse change in the fortunes of rival firms
• Increased intensity of competition among industry rivals–may squeeze profit margins
• Slowdowns in market growth • Likely entry of potent new competitors • Growing bargaining power of customers or
suppliers • A shift in buyer needs and tastes away from the
industry’s product • Adverse demographic changes that threaten to
curtail demand for the industry’s product • Adverse economic conditions that threaten
critical suppliers or distributors • Changes in technology–particularly disruptive
technology that can undermine the company’s distinctive competencies
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Potential Strengths and Competitive Assets Potential Weaknesses and Competitive Deficiencies
• Acquiring rival firms or companies with attractive technological expertise or capabilities
• Taking advantage of emerging technological developments to innovate
• Entering into alliances or joint ventures to expand the firm’s market coverage or boost its competitive capability
• Restrictive foreign trade policies • Costly new regulatory requirements • Tight credit conditions • Rising prices on energy or other key inputs
Identifying a Company’s Market Opportunities Market opportunity is a big factor in shaping a company’s strategy. Indeed, managers can’t properly tailor strategy to the company’s situation without first identifying its market opportunities and appraising the growth and profit potential each one holds. Depending on the prevailing circumstances, a company’s opportunities can be plentiful or scarce, fleeting or lasting, and can range from wildly attractive to marginally interesting to unsuitable. Table 4.3 displays a sampling of potential market opportunities.
Newly emerging and fast-changing markets sometimes present stunningly big or “golden” opportunities, but it is typically hard for managers at one company to peer into “the fog of the future” and spot them far ahead of managers at other companies.9 But as the fog begins to clear, golden opportunities are nearly always seized rapidly—and the companies that seize them are usually those that have been actively waiting, staying alert with diligent market reconnaissance, and preparing themselves to capitalize on shifting market conditions by patiently assembling an arsenal of resources to enable aggressive action when the time comes. In mature markets, unusually attractive market opportunities emerge sporadically, often after long periods of relative calm—but future market conditions may be more predictable, making emerging opportunities easier for industry members to detect.
A company is well advised to pass on a particular market opportunity unless it has or can acquire the resources and capabilities needed to capture it.
In evaluating a company’s market opportunities and ranking their attractiveness, managers have to guard against viewing every industry opportunity as a company opportunity. Rarely does a company have the resource depth to pursue all available market opportunities simultaneously without spreading itself too thin. Some companies have resources and capabilities better-suited for pursuing some opportunities, and a few companies may be hopelessly outclassed in competing for any of an industry’s attractive opportunities. The market opportunities most relevant to a company are those that match up well with the company’s competitive assets, offer the best prospects for growth and profitability, and present the most potential for competitive advantage.
Identifying the Threats to a Company’s Future Profitability Often, certain factors in a company’s external environment pose threats to its profitability and competitive well-being. Threats can stem from such factors as the emergence of cheaper or better technologies, the entry of lower-cost foreign competitors into a company’s market stronghold, new regulations that are more burdensome to a company than to its competitors, unfavorable demographic shifts, and political upheaval in a foreign country where the company has facilities. Table 4.3 shows a representative list of potential threats.
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Simply making lists of a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats is not enough; the payoff from SWOT analysis comes from the conclusions about a company’s situation and the implications for strategy improvement that flow from the four lists.
External threats may pose no more than a moderate degree of adversity (all companies confront some threatening elements in the course of doing business), or they may be imposing enough to make a company’s situation look tenuous. On rare occasions, market shocks can give birth to a sudden-death threat that throws a company into an immediate crisis and a battle to survive. Many of the world’s major financial institutions were plunged into unprecedented crisis in 2008–2009 by the aftereffects of high-risk mortgage lending, inflated credit ratings on subprime mortgage securities, the collapse of housing prices, and a market flooded with mortgage-related investments (collateralized debt obligations) whose values suddenly evaporated. It is management’s job to identify the threats to the company’s future prospects and to evaluate what strategic actions can be taken to neutralize or lessen their impact.
What Do the SWOT Listings Reveal? SWOT analysis involves more than making four lists. The two most important parts of SWOT analysis are drawing conclusions from the SWOT listings about the company’s overall situation and translating these conclusions into strategic actions to better match the company’s strategy to its internal strengths and market opportunities, to correct important weaknesses, and to defend against external threats. Figure 4.2 shows the steps involved in gleaning insights from SWOT analysis.
FIGURE 4.2 The Steps Involved in SWOT Analysis: Identify the Four Components of SWOT, Draw Conclusions, Translate Implications into Strategic Actions
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The final piece of SWOT analysis is to translate the diagnosis of the company’s situation into actions for improving the company’s strategy and business prospects. A company’s internal strengths should always serve as the basis of its strategy—-placing heavy reliance on a company’s best competitive assets is the soundest route to attracting customers and competing successfully against rivals.10 As a rule, strategies that place heavy demands on areas where the company is weakest or has unproven competencies should be avoided. Plainly, managers must look toward correcting competitive weaknesses that make the company vulnerable, hold down profitability, or disqualify it from pursuing an attractive opportunity. Furthermore, a company’s strategy should be aimed squarely at capturing attractive market opportunities that are suited to the company’s collection of capabilities. How much attention to devote to defending against external threats to the company’s future performance hinges on how vulnerable the company is, whether defensive moves can be taken to lessen their impact, and whether the costs of undertaking such moves represent the best use of company resources.
QUESTION 4: HOW DO A COMPANY’S VALUE CHAIN ACTIVITIES IMPACT ITS COST STRUCTURE AND CUSTOMER VALUE PROPOSITION?
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LO 4 How a company’s value chain activities can affect the company’s cost structure and customer value proposition.
Company managers are often stunned when a competitor cuts its prices to “unbelievably low” levels or when a new market entrant introduces a great new product at a surprisingly low price. While less common, new entrants can also storm the market with a product that ratchets the quality level up so high that customers will abandon competing sellers even if they have to pay more for the new product. This is what seems to have happened with Apple’s iPhone 6 and iMac computers; it is what Apple is betting on with the Apple Watch.
Regardless of where on the quality spectrum a company competes, it must remain competitive in terms of its customer value proposition in order to stay in the game. Patagonia’s value proposition, for example, remains attractive to customers who value quality, wide selection, and corporate environmental responsibility over cheaper outerwear alternatives. Since its inception in 1925, the New Yorker’s customer value proposition has withstood the test of time by providing readers with an amalgam of well- crafted, rigorously fact-checked, and topical writing.
The higher a company’s costs are above those of close rivals, the more competitively vulnerable the company becomes.
The value provided to the customer depends on how well a customer’s needs are met for the price paid. How well customer needs are met depends on the perceived quality of a product or service as well as on other, more tangible attributes. The greater the amount of customer value that the company can offer profitably compared to its rivals, the less vulnerable it will be to competitive attack. For managers, the key is to keep close track of how cost-effectively the company can deliver value to customers relative to its competitors. If it can deliver the same amount of value with lower expenditures (or more value at the same cost), it will maintain a competitive edge.
The greater the amount of customer value that a company can offer profitably relative to close rivals, the less competitively vulnerable the company becomes.
Two analytic tools are particularly useful in determining whether a company’s costs and customer value proposition are competitive: value chain analysis and benchmarking.
The Concept of a Company Value Chain Every company’s business consists of a collection of activities undertaken in the course of producing, marketing, delivering, and supporting its product or service. All the various activities that a company performs internally combine to form a value chain—so called because the underlying intent of a company’s activities is ultimately to create value for buyers.
CORE CONCEPT A company’s value chain identifies the primary activities and related support activities that create customer value.
As shown in Figure 4.3, a company’s value chain consists of two broad categories of activities: the primary activities foremost in creating value for customers and the requisite support activities that facilitate and enhance the performance of the primary activities.11 The kinds of primary and secondary activities that constitute a company’s value chain vary according to the specifics of a company’s business; hence, the listing of the primary and support activities in Figure 4.3 is illustrative rather than definitive. For example, the primary activities at a hotel operator like Starwood Hotels and Resorts mainly
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consist of site selection and construction, reservations, and hotel operations (check-in and check-out, maintenance and housekeeping, dining and room service, and conventions and meetings); principal support activities that drive costs and impact customer value include hiring and training hotel staff and handling general administration. Supply chain management is a crucial activity for J.Crew and Boeing but is not a value chain component at Facebook, LinkedIn, or Goldman Sachs. Sales and marketing are dominant activities at GAP and Match.com but have only minor roles at oil-drilling companies and natural gas pipeline companies. Customer delivery is a crucial activity at Domino’s Pizza but insignificant at Starbucks.
FIGURE 4.3 A Representative Company Value Chain
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Source: Based on the discussion in Michael E. Porter, Competitive Advantage (New York: Free Press, 1985), pp. 37 –43.
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With its focus on value-creating activities, the value chain is an ideal tool for examining the workings of a company’s customer value proposition and business model. It permits a deep look at the company’s cost structure and ability to offer low prices. It reveals the emphasis that a company places on activities that enhance differentiation and support higher prices, such as service and marketing. It also includes a profit margin component, since profits are necessary to compensate the company’s owners and investors, who bear risks and provide capital. Tracking the profit margin along with the value-creating activities is critical because unless an enterprise succeeds in delivering customer value profitably (with a sufficient return on invested capital), it can’t survive for long. Attention to a company’s profit formula in addition to its customer value proposition is the essence of a sound business model, as described in Chapter 1.
Illustration Capsule 4.1 shows representative costs for various value chain activities performed by Boll & Branch, a maker of luxury linens and bedding sold directly to consumers online.
Comparing the Value Chains of Rival Companies Value chain analysis facilitates a comparison of how rivals, activity by activity, deliver value to customers. Even rivals in the same industry may differ significantly in terms of the activities they perform. For instance, the “operations” component of the value chain for a manufacturer that makes all of its own parts and components and assembles them into a finished product differs from the “operations” of a rival producer that buys the needed parts and components from outside suppliers and performs only assembly operations. How each activity is performed may affect a company’s relative cost position as well as its capacity for differentiation. Thus, even a simple comparison of how the activities of rivals’ value chains differ can reveal competitive differences.
A Company’s Primary and Secondary Activities Identify the Major Components of Its Internal Cost Structure The combined costs of all the various primary and support activities constituting a company’s value chain define its internal cost structure. Further, the cost of each activity contributes to whether the company’s overall cost position relative to rivals is favorable or unfavorable. The roles of value chain analysis and benchmarking are to develop the data for comparing a company’s costs activity by activity against the costs of key rivals and to learn which internal activities are a source of cost advantage or disadvantage.
A company’s cost-competitiveness depends not only on the costs of internally performed activities (its own value chain) but also on costs in the value chains of its suppliers and distribution-channel allies.
Evaluating a company’s cost-competitiveness involves using what accountants call activity-based costing to determine the costs of performing each value chain activity.12 The degree to which a company’s total costs should be broken down into costs for specific activities depends on how valuable it is to know the costs of specific activities versus broadly defined activities. At the very least, cost estimates are needed for each broad category of primary and support activities, but cost estimates for more specific activities within each broad category may be needed if a company discovers that it has a cost disadvantage vis-à-vis rivals and wants to pin down the exact source or activity causing the cost disadvantage. However, a company’s own internal costs may be insufficient to assess whether its product offering and customer value proposition are competitive with those of rivals. Cost and price differences among competing companies can have their origins in activities performed by suppliers or by distribution allies involved in getting the product to the final customers or end users of the product, in which case the company’s entire value chain system becomes relevant.
ILLUSTRATION CAPSULE 4.1
The Value Chain for Boll & Branch
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© belchonock/iStock/Getty Images
A king-size set of sheets from Boll & Branch is made from 6 meters of fabric, requiring 11 kilograms of raw cotton.
Raw Cotton $ 28.16
Spinning/Weaving/Dyeing 12.00
Cutting/Sewing/Finishing 9.50
Material Transportation 3.00
Factory Fee 15.80
Cost of Goods $ 68.46
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Inspection Fees 5.48
Ocean Freight/Insurance 4.55
Import Duties 8.22
Warehouse/Packing 8.50
Packaging 15.15
Customer Shipping 14.00
Promotions/Donations* 30.00
Total Cost $154.38
Boll & Brand Markup About 60%
Boll & Brand Retail Price $250.00
Gross Margin** $ 95.62
Source: Adapted from Christina Brinkley, “What Goes into the Price of Luxury Sheets?” The Wall Street Journal, March 29, 2014, www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702303725404579461953672838672 (accessed February 16, 2016).
The Value Chain System A company’s value chain is embedded in a larger system of activities that includes the value chains of its suppliers and the value chains of whatever wholesale distributors and retailers it utilizes in getting its product or service to end users. This value chain system (sometimes called a vertical chain) has implications that extend far beyond the company’s costs. It can affect attributes like product quality that enhance differentiation and have importance for the company’s customer value proposition, as well as its profitability.13 Suppliers’ value chains are relevant because suppliers perform activities and incur costs in creating and delivering the purchased inputs utilized in a company’s own value-creating activities. The costs, performance features, and quality of these inputs influence a company’s own costs and product differentiation capabilities. Anything a company can do to help its suppliers drive down the costs of their value chain activities or improve the quality and performance of the items being supplied can enhance its own competitiveness—a powerful reason for working collaboratively with suppliers in managing supply chain activities.14 For example, automakers have encouraged their automotive parts suppliers to build plants near the auto assembly plants to facilitate just-in-time deliveries, reduce warehousing and shipping costs, and promote close collaboration on parts design and production scheduling.
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Similarly, the value chains of a company’s distribution-channel partners are relevant because (1) the costs and margins of a company’s distributors and retail dealers are part of the price the ultimate consumer pays and (2) the activities that distribution allies perform affect sales volumes and customer satisfaction. For these reasons, companies normally work closely with their distribution allies (who are their direct customers) to perform value chain activities in mutually beneficial ways. For instance, motor vehicle manufacturers have a competitive interest in working closely with their automobile dealers to promote higher sales volumes and better customer satisfaction with dealers’ repair and maintenance services. Producers of kitchen cabinets are heavily dependent on the sales and promotional activities of their distributors and building supply retailers and on whether distributors and retailers operate cost- effectively enough to be able to sell at prices that lead to attractive sales volumes.
As a consequence, accurately assessing a company’s competitiveness entails scrutinizing the nature and costs of value chain activities throughout the entire value chain system for delivering its products or services to end-use customers. A typical value chain system that incorporates the value chains of suppliers and forward-channel allies (if any) is shown in Figure 4.4. As was the case with company value chains, the specific activities constituting value chain systems vary significantly from industry to industry. The primary value chain system activities in the pulp and paper industry (timber farming, logging, pulp mills, and papermaking) differ from the primary value chain system activities in the home appliance industry (parts and components manufacture, assembly, wholesale distribution, retail sales) and yet again from the computer software industry (programming, disk loading, marketing, distribution).
FIGURE 4.4 A Representative Value Chain System
Source: Based in part on the single-industry value chain displayed in Michael E. Porter, Competitive Advantage (New York: Free Press, 1985), p. 35.
Benchmarking: A Tool for Assessing Whether the Costs and Effectiveness of a Company’s Value Chain Activities Are in Line
CORE CONCEPT Benchmarking is a potent tool for improving a company’s own internal activities that is based on learning how other companies perform them and borrowing their “best practices.”
Benchmarking entails comparing how different companies (both inside and outside the industry) perform various value chain activities—how materials are purchased, how inventories are managed, how
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products are assembled, how fast the company can get new products to market, how customer orders are filled and shipped—and then making cross-company comparisons of the costs and effectiveness of these activities.15 The objectives of benchmarking are to identify the best means of performing an activity and to emulate those best practices.
CORE CONCEPT A best practice is a method of performing an activity that consistently delivers superior results compared to other approaches.
A best practice is a method of performing an activity or business process that consistently delivers superior results compared to other approaches.16 To qualify as a legitimate best practice, the method must have been employed by at least one enterprise and shown to be consistently more effective in lowering costs, improving quality or performance, shortening time requirements, enhancing safety, or achieving some other highly positive operating outcome. Best practices thus identify a path to operating excellence with respect to value chain activities.
Xerox pioneered the use of benchmarking to become more cost-competitive, quickly deciding not to restrict its benchmarking efforts to its office equipment rivals but to extend them to any company regarded as “world class” in performing any activity relevant to Xerox’s business. Other companies quickly picked up on Xerox’s approach. Toyota managers got their idea for just-in-time inventory deliveries by studying how U.S. supermarkets replenished their shelves. Southwest Airlines reduced the turnaround time of its aircraft at each scheduled stop by studying pit crews on the auto racing circuit. More than 80 percent of Fortune 500 companies reportedly use benchmarking for comparing themselves against rivals on cost and other competitively important measures.
The tough part of benchmarking is not whether to do it but, rather, how to gain access to information about other companies’ practices and costs. Sometimes benchmarking can be accomplished by collecting information from published reports, trade groups, and industry research firms or by talking to knowledgeable industry analysts, customers, and suppliers. Sometimes field trips to the facilities of competing or noncompeting companies can be arranged to observe how things are done, compare practices and processes, and perhaps exchange data on productivity and other cost components. However, such companies, even if they agree to host facilities tours and answer questions, are unlikely to share competitively sensitive cost information. Furthermore, comparing two companies’ costs may not involve comparing apples to apples if the two companies employ different cost accounting principles to calculate the costs of particular activities.
Benchmarking the costs of company activities against those of rivals provides hard evidence of whether a company is cost-competitive.
However, a third and fairly reliable source of benchmarking information has emerged. The explosive interest of companies in benchmarking costs and identifying best practices has prompted consulting organizations (e.g., Accenture, A. T. Kearney, Benchnet—The Benchmarking Exchange, and Best Practices, LLC) and several associations (e.g., the QualServe Benchmarking Clearinghouse, and the Strategic Planning Institute’s Council on Benchmarking) to gather benchmarking data, distribute information about best practices, and provide comparative cost data without identifying the names of particular companies. Having an independent group gather the information and report it in a manner that disguises the names of individual companies protects competitively sensitive data and lessens the potential for unethical behavior on the part of company personnel in gathering their own data about competitors. Illustration Capsule 4.2 describes benchmarking practices in the cement industry.
Strategic Options for Remedying a Cost or Value Disadvantage
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The results of value chain analysis and benchmarking may disclose cost or value disadvantages relative to key rivals. Such information is vital in crafting strategic actions to eliminate any such disadvantages and improve profitability. Information of this nature can also help a company find new avenues for enhancing its competitiveness through lower costs or a more attractive customer value proposition. There are three main areas in a company’s total value chain system where company managers can try to improve its efficiency and effectiveness in delivering customer value: (1) a company’s own internal activities, (2) suppliers’ part of the value chain system, and (3) the forward-channel portion of the value chain system.
Improving Internally Performed Value Chain Activities Managers can pursue any of several strategic approaches to reduce the costs of internally performed value chain activities and improve a company’s cost-competitiveness. They can implement best practices throughout the company, particularly for high-cost activities. They can redesign the product and/or some of its components to eliminate high-cost components or facilitate speedier and more economical manufacture or assembly. They can relocate high-cost activities (such as manufacturing) to geographic areas where they can be performed more cheaply or outsource activities to lower-cost vendors or contractors.
ILLUSTRATION CAPSULE 4.2
Delivered-Cost Benchmarking in the Cement Industry
Cement is a dry powder that creates concrete when mixed with water and sand. People interact with concrete every day. It is often the building material of choice for sidewalks, curbs, basements, bridges, and municipal pipes. Cement is manufactured at billion-dollar continuous-process plants by mining limestone, crushing it, scorching it in a kiln, and then milling it again.
About 24 companies (CEMEX, Holcim, and Lafarge are some of the biggest) manufacture cement at 90 U.S. plants with the capacity to produce 110 million tons per year. Plants serve tens of markets distributed across multiple states. Companies regularly benchmark “delivered costs” to understand whether their plants are cost leaders or laggards.
Delivered-cost benchmarking studies typically subdivide manufacturing and logistics costs into five parts: fixed-bin, variable-bin, freight-to-terminal, terminal operating, and freight-to-customer costs. These cost components are estimated using different sources.
Fixed- and variable-bin costs represent the cost of making a ton of cement and moving it to the plant’s storage silos. They are the hardest to estimate. Fortunately, the Portland Cement Association, or PCA (the cement industry’s association), publishes key data for every plant that features plant location, age, capacity, technology, and fuel. Companies combine the industry data, satellite imagery revealing quarry characteristics, and news reports with the company’s proprietary plant-level financial data to develop their estimates of competitors’ costs. The basic assumption is that plants of similar size utilizing similar technologies and raw-material inputs will have similar cost performance.
Logistics costs (including freight-to-terminal, terminal operating, and freight-to-customer costs) are much easier to accurately estimate. Cement companies use common carriers to move their product by barge, train, and truck transit modes. Freight pricing is competitive on a per-mile basis by mode, meaning that the company’s per-ton-mile barge cost applies to the competition. By combining the per- ton-mile cost with origin-destination distances, freight costs are easily calculated. Terminal operating costs, the costs of operating barge or rail terminals that store cement and transfer it to trucks for local delivery, represent the smallest fraction of total supply chain cost and typically vary little within mode type. For example, most barge terminals cost $10 per ton to run, whereas rail terminals are less expensive and cost $5 per ton.
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By combining all five estimated cost elements, the company benchmarks its estimated relative cost position by market. Using these data, strategists can identify which of the company’s plants are most exposed to volume fluctuations, which are in greatest need of investment or closure, which markets the company should enter or exit, and which competitors are the most likely candidates for product or asset swaps. Note: Developed with Peter Jacobson. Source: www.cement.org (accessed January 25, 2014).
To improve the effectiveness of the company’s customer value proposition and enhance differentiation, managers can take several approaches. They can adopt best practices for quality, marketing, and customer service. They can reallocate resources to activities that address buyers’ most important purchase criteria, which will have the biggest impact on the value delivered to the customer. They can adopt new technologies that spur innovation, improve design, and enhance creativity. Additional approaches to managing value chain activities to lower costs and/or enhance customer value are discussed in Chapter 5.
Improving Supplier-Related Value Chain Activities Supplier-related cost disadvantages can be attacked by pressuring suppliers for lower prices, switching to lower-priced substitute inputs, and collaborating closely with suppliers to identify mutual cost-saving opportunities.17 For example, just-in-time deliveries from suppliers can lower a company’s inventory and internal logistics costs and may also allow suppliers to economize on their warehousing, shipping, and production scheduling costs—a win–win outcome for both. In a few instances, companies may find that it is cheaper to integrate backward into the business of high-cost suppliers and make the item in-house instead of buying it from outsiders.
Similarly, a company can enhance its customer value proposition through its supplier relationships. Some approaches include selecting and retaining suppliers that meet higher-quality standards, providing quality-based incentives to suppliers, and integrating suppliers into the design process. Fewer defects in parts from suppliers not only improve quality throughout the value chain system but can lower costs as well since less waste and disruption occur in the production processes.
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Improving Value Chain Activities of Distribution Partners Any of three means can be used to achieve better cost-competitiveness in the forward portion of the industry value chain:
1. Pressure distributors, dealers, and other forward-channel allies to reduce their costs and markups. 2. Collaborate with them to identify win–win opportunities to reduce costs—for example, a chocolate
manufacturer learned that by shipping its bulk chocolate in liquid form in tank cars instead of as 10- pound molded bars, it could not only save its candy bar manufacturing customers the costs associated with unpacking and melting but also eliminate its own costs of molding bars and packing them.
3. Change to a more economical distribution strategy, including switching to cheaper distribution channels (selling direct via the Internet) or integrating forward into company-owned retail outlets.
The means to enhancing differentiation through activities at the forward end of the value chain system include (1) engaging in cooperative advertising and promotions with forward allies (dealers, distributors, retailers, etc.), (2) creating exclusive arrangements with downstream sellers or utilizing other mechanisms that increase their incentives to enhance delivered customer value, and (3) creating and enforcing standards for downstream activities and assisting in training channel partners in business practices. Harley-Davidson, for example, enhances the shopping experience and perceptions of buyers by selling through retailers that sell Harley-Davidson motorcycles exclusively and meet Harley-Davidson standards.
Translating Proficient Performance of Value Chain Activities into Competitive Advantage A company that does a first-rate job of managing its value chain activities relative to competitors stands a good chance of profiting from its competitive advantage. A company’s value-creating activities can offer a competitive advantage in one of two ways (or both):
1. They can contribute to greater efficiency and lower costs relative to competitors. 2. They can provide a basis for differentiation, so customers are willing to pay relatively more for the
company’s goods and services.
Achieving a cost-based competitive advantage requires determined management efforts to be cost- efficient in performing value chain activities. Such efforts have to be ongoing and persistent, and they have to involve each and every value chain activity. The goal must be continuous cost reduction, not a one-time or on-again–off-again effort. Companies like Dollar General, Nucor Steel, Irish airline Ryanair, T.J.Maxx, and French discount retailer Carrefour have been highly successful in managing their value chains in a low-cost manner.
Ongoing and persistent efforts are also required for a competitive advantage based on differentiation. Superior reputations and brands are built up slowly over time, through continuous investment and activities that deliver consistent, reinforcing messages. Differentiation based on quality requires vigilant management of activities for quality assurance throughout the value chain. While the basis for differentiation (e.g., status, design, innovation, customer service, reliability, image) may vary widely among companies pursuing a differentiation advantage, companies that succeed do so on the basis of a commitment to coordinated value chain activities aimed purposefully at this objective. Examples include Cartier (status), Room and Board (craftsmanship), American Express (customer service), Dropbox (innovation), and FedEx (reliability).
How Value Chain Activities Relate to Resources and Capabilities There is a close relationship between the value-creating activities that a company performs and its resources and capabilities. An organizational capability or competence implies a capacity for action; in contrast, a value-creating activity initiates the action. With respect to resources and capabilities, activities are “where the rubber hits the road.” When companies engage in a value-creating activity, they do so by drawing on specific company resources and capabilities that underlie and enable the activity. For
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example, brand-building activities depend on human resources, such as experienced brand managers (including their knowledge and expertise in this arena), as well as organizational capabilities in advertising and marketing. Cost-cutting activities may derive from organizational capabilities in inventory management, for example, and resources such as inventory tracking systems.
Because of this correspondence between activities and supporting resources and capabilities, value chain analysis can complement resource and capability analysis as another tool for assessing a company’s competitive advantage. Resources and capabilities that are both valuable and rare provide a company with what it takes for competitive advantage. For a company with competitive assets of this sort, the potential is there. When these assets are deployed in the form of a value-creating activity, that potential is realized due to their competitive superiority. Resource analysis is one tool for identifying competitively superior resources and capabilities. But their value and the competitive superiority of that value can be assessed objectively only after they are deployed. Value chain analysis and benchmarking provide the type of data needed to make that objective assessment.
Performing value chain activities with capabilities that permit the company to either outmatch rivals on differentiation or beat them on costs will give the company a competitive advantage.
There is also a dynamic relationship between a company’s activities and its resources and capabilities. Value-creating activities are more than just the embodiment of a resource’s or capability’s potential. They also contribute to the formation and development of capabilities. The road to competitive advantage begins with management efforts to build organizational expertise in performing certain competitively important value chain activities. With consistent practice and continuous investment of company resources, these activities rise to the level of a reliable organizational capability or a competence. To the extent that top management makes the growing capability a cornerstone of the company’s strategy, this capability becomes a core competence for the company. Later, with further organizational learning and gains in proficiency, the core competence may evolve into a distinctive competence, giving the company superiority over rivals in performing an important value chain activity. Such superiority, if it gives the company significant competitive clout in the marketplace, can produce an attractive competitive edge over rivals. Whether the resulting competitive advantage is on the cost side or on the differentiation side (or both) will depend on the company’s choice of which types of competence-building activities to engage in over this time period.
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