Sustainable Competitive Advantage Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Sustainable Competitive Advantage - Essay Example As the paper discusses  the concept of competitive advantage was first brought to the lime light by Porter. He mentioned in his book that competitive advantage can be attained by creating a unique differentiation and by achieving low cost of production. However, this theory has been revised by him and the concept of ‘Sustainable Competitive Advantage’ was introduced. He further mentioned that companies should follow either cost leadership or differentiation, and should not follow the middle path.  This essay stresses that  the resource availability is directly proportional to the organizational success, as high amount of resource can lead higher production volume. As a result, a company with higher amount of resources can easily meet the growing demands of the customers, compared to its rival thereby giving it a competitive advantage.  The resource heterogeneity or resource uniqueness is a major factor that gives firm a unique edge over its rivals. Thus if all th e existing firms possess the same resources, even in abundance, will not create competitive advantage for one firm. Thus competitive advantage cannot be same for all firms.  The uniqueness of a firm’s skills and resources is the primary factor responsible for development of the competitive advantage.  Organizational resources are valuable only when it has high demand in the industry, it is scarce and it is appropriate for the firms’ operational process.