HOME WORK HELP

SustainingSuperiorPerformance.docx

Home >Business & Finance homework help >Operations Management homework help >HOME WORK HELP

Sustaining Superior Performance

A firm’s ultimate goal is the lasting ability to outperform the competition. It impels the company to stay ahead of present and future competition and ensure market leadership.

A competitive advantage is an advantage gained over competitors by offering customers greater value, either through lower prices or by providing additional benefits and service that justify similar, or possibly higher, prices.

Strategy is about positioning your organization for competitive advantage. A strategy aims to offer customers greater value and service than provided by competitors and relates to choices on what services to offer and, therefore, how to allocate resources.

Managerial tools, such as quality management systems, operational efficiencies, financial control, human resource development (HRD) systems, sales, and marketing, help us perform better than competitors. They are necessary but are fairly easily imitated.

Whatever competitive advantage you may possess, whether one of cost leadership, differentiated products and services, specialized service in a niche market, or a combination of these, ongoing change in the environment and countermoves by your competitors will keep eroding your position. A company’s dominant position decays over time; it cannot last forever.

The company has to craft and implement strategies that sustain its competitive advantage. Creating a sustainable and superior performance is the most important area of focus for an organization. Your strategy, therefore, must serve a dual purpose:

· slow down the process of erosion by protecting current advantage against the actions of competitors

· invest in new skills and knowledge that will form a platform for the next position of competitive advantage

The essence of strategy—both in terms of what to do and what not to do—is to create barriers to imitations, an approach depicted in the figure below.

Diagram showing four steps to achieve performance, revenue, profit, and market share: 1) Sources of advantage include processes, knowledge, and skills. 2) Investments in renewal, including processes, knowledge, and skills. 3) counter-moves by competition erodes advantage. 4) Competition position achieved with superior customer value.

Strategy to Sustain Superior Performance

A sustainable competitive advantage may seem difficult to achieve. However, it has certain essential ingredients, as shown in the figure below.

Diagram showing seven key aspects of sustainable competitive advantage: people, culture, processes, knowledge, technology, capital, and sustainability.

Elements of Sustaining Superior Performance

People and their capability represent the source of most competitive advantage. Furthermore, a culture of innovation and accepting change, superior process that are difficult to imitate, knowledge management systems, technologies to support processes, capital to renovate and invest in new opportunities, and production processes that are environmentally sustainable comprise the foundational elements to achieving a lasting ability to outperform competitors.