CREATING CORPORATE

ADVANTAGE
THE TRIANGLE OF CORPORATE
STRATEGY
THE RESOURCE CONTINUUM
Competitive Advantage:
Specialized in optoelectronics technology
Creation of LCD
LCD viewfinder in video recorders, capturing 20% of Japanese market
within six months of product launch.
Atsushi Asada, senior executive believes, Sharp can successfully
extend its scope into many new businesses as long as competitive
advantage depends on one of its core technology. E.g. extension of
its screen technology.
Coordination:
Depends on shared technological activities
Division of functional units rather than production divisions
Hence providing responsibilities rather than authorities
Corporate committees to ensure shared activities that includes R&D
unit and sales forces are optimally configured and allocated among
the different product lines.
Control System:
Needs control system that focuses on human behavior than on
short-term financial outcomes achieved.
Believes on promotion rather than annual compensation.
Promotion on the basis of seniority and skills.
Reinforces on the view that the company is a family or community
whose members should cooperate for the greater good.
THE RESOURCE CONTINUUM-
SHARP
Nature of resources
Scope of businesses
Coordination mechanisms
Control system
Corporate office size
General
wide
transferrin
g
financial
small
specialized
narrow
sharing
operating
large
Competitive Advantage:
Wide range of business of low-tech businesses.

T
Coordination:
Transferring coordination.
Based on performance rather than human behavior.
Fails to perform Tyco will look for replacement
Small entrepreneurs within small groups focusing on business
expansion and profitability.
no meetings, no memos
T
Control System:
Financial control system offering powerful incentives to achieve
extraordinary results.
Division executives are held strictly accountable for a limited
number of financial measures.


THE RESOURCE CONTINUUM-
TYCO
Nature of resources
Scope of businesses
Coordination mechanisms
Control system
Corporate office size
General
wide
transferrin
g
financial
small
specialized
narrow
sharing
operating
large
FAILURE AT SAATCHI AND SAATCHI
Failure
Inconsistency
Competitive advantage
Customer relationships/creative advertisment
Business expansion to merchant and commercial bank.
General resources
But no financial control system
Unwanted growth in employees and lease office space
FINDINGS
Sharp, Newell and Tyco at different position on The resource
continuum
Difference in the business context, difference in company start
point and different kind of resources.
Different philosophy
Sharp-technology as nucleus
Tyco-no meetings, no memos
Newell-
LESSON LEARNED
An outstanding corporate strategy a carefully constructed system of
interdependent parts and not a random collection of individual
building blocks.
Importance of consistency (alignment of resources) in maintaining
competitive advantage
Process of continual upgrading
Creativity and intuition are hallmarks of great corporate strategies.
Importance of resources in competitive advantage, coordination and
control system.
The importance of resource continuum in providing corporate from
the highly specialized at one end to the very general at the other.
one size does not fit all.
THANK YOU