Is Your Success Based On A Strategic Competency Or A Strategic Asset?
One of the difficult discussions I sometimes encounter involves strategic competencies. A strategic competency is know-how that enables you to create value for your customers in a unique way. One of the critical attributes of this know-how is that – as with most skills – the more you use it, the better it gets. Another way of looking at know-how based competencies is that they can’t be taken away from you – not by competition, changes in technology, or the marketplace. True, some know-how can become less valuable as markets change – think of Compaq’s early expertise in building high-quality “portable” computers that weighed 26 pounds (12 kilos) – but usually, this know how can lead to another competency that retains its value over time.
Some companies behave as if their assets are competencies. This is a big mistake. Strategic assets can be physical locations, individual employees, or even legislative situations (such as an airline’s protected status in a treaty governing air travel between countries). Such assets, while strategically valuable, do not appreciate with use – they tend to depreciate. Worse yet, in the case of assets like individuals or legislated advantages, they can disappear overnight. While you may have a successful strategy based on such assets for years, truly successful companies inevitably shift their focus to know-how based strategic competencies, for a much longer lasting competitive advantage.
Is your company’s strategy based on a strategic competency or a strategic asset? If you have built your success on a strategic asset, consider ways you can shift your focus to a know-how based competency over the next few years. Not only will you find new possibilities for growth, but the resulting success is likely to be much more durable.
Robert Bradford is the author of Simplified Strategic Planning and four other books on strategic management, and has created strategic plans with hundreds of organizations around the world since 1987. As a nationally acclaimed speaker and consultant, Robert has spent the last twenty years converting management theory into real-life application. Robert can be reached at http://www.cssp.com, and you can read more of Robert’s writing in his blog at http://simplifiedstrategicplanning.blogspot.com/
