Internal Company Analysis Resources and Capabilities Assignment
Note: Our industry is the Walt Disney Company-Movies & Entertainment. You will be working on these 2 categories:
•Identify company competitive high value Resources
•Determine Capability for each Resource
THE ATTACHED PPT IS TO HELP GUIDE YOU SO PLEASE SEE IT! THANK YOU 🙂
RESOURCES and CAPABILITIES
Internal Company Analysis
Resources and Capabilities
Assignment #4
Due Nov 14
Name
Name your Company, SIC Code, website and company products and services
Name
Name 3 competitor companies (SIC Code and website)
Identify
Identify 3 company competitive high value Resources
Determine
Determine Capability for each Resource
Identify
Identify 1 Competitor high value resources (no capability needed).
Identify
Identify 1 VRIN for company (1 out of the 3).
What Are the Company’s Most Important Resources and Capabilities?
Competitive assets
Resources and capabilities
They determine competitiveness and the ability to succeed in the marketplace.
A firm’s strategy depends on these to develop sustainable competitive advantage over its rivals.
A firm’s resources and capabilities are its competitive assets and they determine whether its competitive power in the marketplace will be impressively strong or disappointingly weak. Companies with second-rate competitive assets nearly always are relegated to a trailing position in the industry.
Connect Activity
Consider adding a LearnSmart assignment requiring the student to review this section of the chapter as an interactive question and answer review. The assignment can be graded and posted automatically.
Identifying the Company’s
Resources and Capabilities
A resource is a competitive asset that is owned or controlled by a firm.
A capability or competence is the capacity of a firm to perform an internal activity competently through deployment of a firm’s resources.
A firm’s resources and capabilities represent its competitive assets and are determinants of its competitiveness and ability to succeed in the marketplace.
Resource and capability analysis is a powerful tool for sizing up a firm’s competitive assets and determining if they can support a sustainable competitive advantage over market rivals.
A resource
A productive input or competitive asset that is owned or controlled by a firm (e.g., a fleet of oil tankers)
A capability
The capacity of a firm to perform some activity proficiently (e.g., superior skills in marketing)
Types of Company Resources
Tangible resources
Physical resources: land and real estate; manufacturing plants, equipment, or distribution facilities; the locations of stores, plants, or distribution centers, including the overall pattern of their physical locations; ownership of or access rights to natural resources (such as mineral deposits)
Financial resources: cash and cash equivalents; marketable securities; other financial assets such as a company’s credit rating and borrowing capacity
Technological assets: patents, copyrights, production technology, innovation technologies, technological processes
Organizational resources: IT and communication systems (satellites, servers, workstations, etc.); other planning, coordination, and control systems; the company’s organizational design and reporting structure
© McGraw-Hill Education.
Tangible resources are the most easily identified, because tangible resources are those that can be touched or quantified readily. Obviously, they include various types of physical resources such as manufacturing facilities and mineral resources, but they also include a company’s financial resources, technological resources, and organizational resources such as the company’s communication and control systems.
Technological resources are included among tangible resources, by convention, even though some types, such as copyrights and trade secrets, might be more logically categorized as intangible.
Types of Company Resources
Copyright McGraw-Hill Education. Permission required for reproduction or display.
Intangible resources
Human assets and intellectual capital: the education, experience, knowledge, and talent of the workforce, cumulative learning, and tacit knowledge of employees; collective learning embedded in the organization, the intellectual capital and know-how of specialized teams and work groups; the knowledge of key personnel concerning important business functions; managerial talent and leadership skill; the creativity and innovativeness of certain personnel
Brands, company image, and reputational assets: brand names, trademarks, product or company image, buyer loyalty and goodwill; company reputation for quality, service, and reliability; reputation with suppliers and partners for fair dealing
Relationships: alliances, joint ventures, or partnerships that provide access to technologies, specialized know-how, or geographic markets; networks of dealers or distributors; the trust established with various partners
Company culture and incentive system: the norms of behavior, business principles, and ingrained beliefs within the company; the attachment of personnel to the company’s ideals; the compensation system and the motivation level of company personnel
© McGraw-Hill Education.
Intangible resources are harder to discern, but they are often among the most important of a firm’s competitive assets. They include various sorts of human assets and intellectual capital (skills and knowledge), as well as its brands, image, and reputational assets. While intangible resources have no material existence on their own, they are often embodied in something material.
It is important to remember that it is not exactly how a resource is categorized that matters, rather, that all of the firm’s different types of resources are included in the inventory.
The real purpose of using categories in identifying a firm’s resources is to ensure that none of a firm’s resources go unnoticed when sizing up its competitive assets
Identifying Capabilities
An organizational capability
Is the intangible but observable capacity of a firm to perform a critical activity proficiently using a related combination of its resources
Is knowledge-based, residing in people and in a firm’s intellectual capital or in its organizational processes and systems, embodying tacit knowledge
A resource bundle
Is a linked and closely integrated set of competitive assets centered around one or more cross-functional capabilities
© McGraw-Hill Education.
Organizational capabilities are more complex entities than resources; indeed, they are built up through the use of resources and draw on some combination of the firm’s resources as they are exercised.
Two approaches to identifying a firm’s capabilities:
A complete listing of resources the firm has accumulated considering whether (and to what extent the firm has built up any related capabilities through their use).
A functional approach that identifies capabilities related to specific functions that draw on a limited set of resources involving a single department or organizational unit and cross-functional capabilities that are multidimensional—they spring from effective collaboration among people with different types of expertise working in different organizational units.
VRIN: Four Tests of a Resource’s
Competitive Power
The VRIN Test for sustainable competitive advantage asks if a resource or capability is Valuable, Rare, Inimitable, and Non-substitutable.
V: Is the resource (or capability) competitively valuable?
R: Is it rare—is it something rivals lack?
I: Is it hard to copy (inimitable)?
N: Is it invulnerable to the threat of substitution of different types of resources and capabilities (non-substitutable)?
© McGraw-Hill Education.
The competitive power of a resource or capability is measured by how many of four specific tests it can pass. These tests are referred to as the VRIN tests for sustainable competitive advantage—VRIN is a shorthand reminder standing for Valuable, Rare, Inimitable, and Nonsubstitutable. The first two tests determine whether a resource or capability can support a competitive advantage. The last two determine whether the competitive advantage can be sustained. Resources can contribute to a sustainable competitive advantage only when resource substitutes aren’t on the horizon.
Internal Company Analysis
Resources and Capabilities
Assignment #4
Name
Name your Company, SIC Code, website and company products and services
Name
Name 3 competitor companies (SIC Code and website)
Identify
Identify 3 company competitive high value Resources
Determine
Determine Capability for each Resource
Identify
Identify 1 Competitor high value resources (no capability needed).
Identify
Identify VRIN for company and competitors within the industry.