ITPEC FE Morning April 2021 Question 66

The management resources that are the source of competitive advantage — core competence is what a company does better than its rivals.

Core competence (Prahalad and Hamel) is a company's distinctive combination of technologies, skills and know-how that customers value, that competitors find hard to imitate, and that can be applied across several products and markets. Strategy builds on it, for example by keeping it in-house while outsourcing the rest.

Answer (c)

Why not others:

• •(a) — the basic mindset and action guidelines behind management is the management philosophy (corporate philosophy)
• •(b) — opportunities and threats in the surrounding environment are the external half of a SWOT analysis
• •(d) — the objectives to be achieved by executing a strategy are management goals, the result aimed at rather than the resource that achieves it

Key rule: Core competence is an internal strength that is valuable, hard to copy and reusable across businesses; external factors and goals are different parts of strategy.

Business Strategy Management · AI-written, may contain errors