Competitive Advantage: The Holy Grail of the Strategist [PODCAST S2 E11]

Do you know why some businesses survive for a long time whereas others die quickly? When a company lacks a sustained competitive advantage, it finds sit hard to survive or make money over the long term. Thus, a sustained advantage is the life force of business.

The Single Biggest Goal of the Strategist

Since competitive advantage is so critical for business, it is the single biggest goal of a strategist. In this episode, I discuss what is a competitive advantage and how does it arise?

Three Sources of Competitive Advantage

There are three sources of competitive advantage for a firm: resources, capabilities and activity systems. I discuss these three in this episode and also provide examples of how the same. But a fundamental question arises as to why some resources, capabilities and activity systems provide an advantage to the firm but others do not. The answer depends on four conditions which I detail in this episode.

Key Takeaways

The core takes ways from this week’s episode are as follows:

1. Why does your firm need to build a sustained competitive advantage?
2. What is the benefit of competitive advantage and what happens if you cannot create it?
3. How competitive advantage arises from resources, capabilities and activity systems of firms.
4. What are the four conditions that drive a sustained competitive advantage?

How to Listen?

This audio is now available as a part of a complete online strategy program called Becoming a Strategist. You can listen to it in the course here