Assignment:
Part 1
I definitely agree with the statement "Sustainable competitive advantage as a strategic goal making tool is still viable for the business organization today" for many reasons. Effective marketing creates a competitive advantage. When a company develops a sustainable competitive advantage, their competition cannot and/or will not match what they offer. This week we learned about many companies who were outperforming their competitors however, they lost their edge because they fell into either a physical trap, psychological trap, a strategic trap, or a combination of the three (Newman, 2010). When companies fail to anticipate the future needs of the company, they will lose their competitive advantage. In order to maintain a competitive advantage, companies must be ambidextrous. Organizational ambidexterity within a company will allow them to explore new competencies while exploiting existing competencies (Wang &Rafiq, 2014)
Next, business organizations today must establish an organizational culture that is clear and understood by everyone in order to achieve a competitive advantage. In his article, Madu explains to us that creating an organizational culture is a vital component in sustaining competitive advantage (Madu, n.d.). Many companies experience ethical failures because they deviate from ethical ideals and practices causing them to lose their competitive advantage. Organizational leaders are successful because they establish clear values and beliefs.
Promoting organizational culture within an organization is increases their ability to address problems before they happen and become more competitive. In his article, Madu defines competitive advantage as "a company's ability to perform in one or more ways that competitors cannot or will not match". Being able to offer a customer more than just better prices will allow the company to maintain their competitive advantage.
Part 2
Well, according to Denning's article, "It's Official! The end of Competitive Advantage," competitive advantage is not sustainable, but in fact, it is transient (Denning, 2013). I agree with Denning. Competitive advantage is all about strategizing better than an organizations competition so that that organization will gain more consumers and have higher profit than their competition.
In today's culture, business is run by technology which is ever-changing. With technology changing so much at such a rapid speed, businesses are required to change strategies according. Also, with a change in the general mindset of today's consumers which are becoming more and more and comprised of millennials, organizations need to find ways to stay relevant and on top. So, I would have to say that today, no, competitive advantage cannot be sustainable. However, in prior business eras sustainable competitive advantage was possible and quite successful.