Competitive Advantage at Verizon Wireless

Established in 2000 as a joint venture between Verizon Communications and Britain’s Vodafone, over the last 12 years Verizon Wireless has emerged as the largest and consistently most profitable enterprise in the fiercely competitive U.S. wireless service market (see the Opening Case to Chapter 2 for details of the industry). Today the company has almost 136 million subscribers and a 38% market share.

Case Discussion Questions

1. What resources underlie Verizon’s strong competitive position in the U.S. wireless tele-communications industry?

2. Apply the VRIO framework and describe to what extent these resources can be considered valuable, rare, inimitable, and well organized.

3. Where is Verizon positioned today and how do you think they can maintain or gain competitive advantage?

4. List and explain who their competitors are and how are they positioned.

5. Do you think there are any strategic groups in the telecommunications industry? If so, what might they be? How might the nature of competition vary from group to group?

There was no case, all my professor gave me was this.