Agility as a Source of Competitive Advantage

Mats Larsson

Chapter 4 in The Limits of Business Development and Economic Growth, 2004, pp 49-53 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Competition in all industries has become tougher. Companies are not only more adept at strategic planning, they are also gradually improving their operations. When Sony developed the Walkman this company became expert at miniaturization and no other company could contest its expertise in this area for a long time. Today there are often a number of companies that compete even in cutting-edge technologies and if the leader makes a wrong move this company may lose its leading position. The growing management consulting market and the growing market for IT consulting services testify to the fact that companies spend more and more money on the improvement of their business. The improved skills in strategy and operations in many companies usually do not show as improved profits. They show as tougher and tougher competition between more and more equal competitors. In his 1996 article ‘What is Strategy?’ in the Harvard Business Review, Porter complains that companies are focusing too much on operational efficiency which is easy to copy and focusing too little on the development of unique strategies. It may be that companies focus on operational improvement because they realize that it is difficult to find ‘uninhabited’ areas in markets where they can develop a sustainable uniqueness or unique business processes.

Keywords: Competitive Advantage; Strategy Author; Operational Effectiveness; Harvard Business Review; Strategic Position (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-0-230-51143-9_5

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9780230511439

DOI: 10.1057/9780230511439_5

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().