In this two-part assignment, students will examine the capabilities your company needs to develop to deliver its strategy. An important aspect here is to determine the measures that you want to use to determine the success of your efforts. We assume that your team is about to have a meeting to set long range priorities around performance measures. This assignment is pre-work for that meeting.

Part One: Competencies and Competitive Advantage

At this point you have a vision, and you have a strategic direction. For example, you might be saying, “We plan to be a high technology company. We will concentrate our resources upon the High End, Performance, and Size products and the regional markets that make up these segments. We will compete based upon differentiation to respond to the specific market needs in these regional locations (a multi-domestic strategy).” Or you might have decided to be in every segment and compete on price, or any of a dozen other combinations of vision and strategy.

But what capabilities do you need to develop to execute your strategy? For example, it is one thing to say, “We will compete on price” (using an international or global strategy), and another to build a company that can effectively compete on price and still produce a solid return for stakeholders.

Let’s relate two popular ideas, “Core Competence” and “Competitive Advantage”, to your situation. You could develop competencies in awareness, accessibility, product redesign, product invention, automation, plant utilization, human resources, cash flow management, and forecasting. All of these competencies take several years to develop.

You would use these competencies to develop competitive advantages. For example, competencies in automation and human resources could lead to a competitive advantage in cost leadership. Competencies in awareness, accessibility, and design could lead to a competitive advantage built upon differentiation.

With this as background, present a 1-page written argument to turn in to the instructor and to present to your teammates that addresses the following:

1) What are the top three competencies you believe necessary to execute your vision and strategy in the marketplace?

2) What decisions do you need to make to develop these competencies?

3) How will they produce competitive advantage?