SM Project Guidelines - Part Two

Strategic Management BUSM 3200

These guidelines are provided to help in your preparations for the group assignment. They do

NOT represent in any way “model answers” or a correct approach. Rather they provide

suggestions as to how to proceed with data collection and analysis leading to the completion of

your report. Make sure you read the guidelines provided by the RMIT course coordinator carefully.

BUSM 3200- Strategic Management (JAN 2013) GDS 2-1

The next section (4)-internal aspects

Section 4 of the report:

Identify those resources and competences of the firm (or SBU) that are likely to provide sustainable competitive advantage.

Justify why these resources and competences can be regarded as strategic capabilities using the four criteria covered in the textbook.

BUSM 3200- Strategic Management (July 2012) GDS 2-2

Internal analysis

Read up Lecture Three AND Chapter Three of the text

Understand the unique nature of your SBU or company and its main resources

Not all resources are equally important to all firms- so DON’T do a long list of internal factors that have NO bearing to your analysis

For example in Service Operations, staff may be a key resource capability

Identify those resources that give the company its key capabilities which translate to its competitive advantage


Listing the resources

Here you need to be selective and discriminating

Why are the resources important?

Are they distinctive capabilities?

And what is the core competence/s of the firm?

Which areas of the business are these competences found in? Marketing? HR? Operations? Others?

How are they sustainable (explain?)


You can even apply the Value Chain to comment

2-5 BUSM 3200- Strategic Management (July 2012) GDS

You can selectively discuss WHERE in the VALUE CHAIN of your

firm does the capability exist and why it is strategically important for

your firm

Perhaps your capabilities are ‘leveraged’ by your networks with value chains OUTSIDE your business


The value network (discussed in Chapter 3)

Give specific examples as to where (whose supplier or

distributor VC) your company can benefit from and how

Also read slides 32-39 in my Lecture 3 Slides

Strategic capabilities and competitive advantage

The four key criteria by which capabilities can be assessed in terms of providing a basis for achieving sustainable competitive advantage are:

value,

rarity,

inimitability and

non-substitutability

Source: Jay Barney: ‘Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage’, Journal of Management, vol. 17 (1991), no.

1, pp. 99–120.

VRIN

3-7

READ UP and APPLY

BUSM 3200- Strategic Management (July 2012) GDS

You can comment using a table


Type of resource/ capability of the firm

VRIN Criteria Comments as to how the resource creates competitive advantages for the firm

Valuable Rare Inimitable Non-Sub

1. x x

2. x

3. x

4. x

5. x x

6. x

X: mark according to whether the resource meets the

relevant criteria

Business

SM Project Guidelines - Part Two