Strategic Resource Management

Resource Types

• Threshold resources are the minimum resources needed to meet customers' requirements and continue to exist.
• Unique resources are those that underpin competitive advantage and are difficult for competitors to imitate or obtain.

Critical Success Factors (CSFs)

• CSFs are product features that are particularly valued by a group of customers, and where the organisation must excel to outperform competition.
• Major sources of CSFs include:
  • Structure of the industry (e.g., service support expected by customers)
  • Competitive strategy, industry position, and geographic location (e.g., India's English-speaking manpower for outsourcing)
  • Environmental factors (e.g., deregulation of Indian industry)
  • Temporal factors (e.g., sudden loss of critical manpower or break-up of a family-owned business)

Core Competences

• Core competences are the skills and abilities by which resources are deployed through an organisation's activities and processes to achieve competitive advantage.
• Characteristics of core competences include:
  • Providing distinctive advantage for the firm
  • Being difficult for competitors to imitate
  • Being rare, complex, and embedded in the culture
  • Making a significant contribution to customer value and end products
  • Providing access to a wide variety of markets

Technological Core Competence

• Technological excellence can be a route for acquiring core competence.
• Firms must invest heavily in technology and R&D to build core competence in technology.
• This includes looking for relevant technologies, building competencies, and developing human skills to use them.

Distinctive Technologies

• Distinctive technologies are those in which the company's standing gives it a distinctive competence.
• They provide an organisation with a unique competitive advantage in the market place.
• Organisations must protect, nourish, and capitalise on distinctive technologies.