Erp
- ERP is a relatively novel phenomenon. Therefore there is not much research yet on the relation between ERP systems and competitive advantage, and the processes that lead the business/firm to an ERP-based competitive advantage.
- Competitive Advantage can be viewed from 2 perspectives:
1. Industrial Organisation Perspective (firm external factors) – Porter’s five forces.
(entry of competitors, threat of substitutes, bargaining power of buyers, .. of suppliers, rivalry among existing players)
2. (RBV) Perspective, which is the main focus of this paper.
- According to RVB, four resource attributes, by having them any firm can gain competitive advantage. Being (idiosyncratically fit, valuable, costly to copy or substitute, and leveraged).
- These four attributes can be fulfilled by transforming each of them into a task respectively:
1. Resource Identification: it’s about managing knowledge to make sure that the resource fits the organisation strategy and goals.
2. Resource Development: in order to maintain a valuable resource there should be a continuous development which will be seen as refinements in the end product.
3. Resource Protection: it is expensive to legally protect a resource, so the best way to protect a resource is by keeping it unique and complex to imitate through continuous developing.
4. Internal Distribution of Resources: it’s a major task of the central management. And it requires cooperative efforts from both the source and the recipient of knowledge.
5. The paper suggests that there should be a fifth task “USAGE” in order to create a competitive advantage to clarify managerial efforts post-implementation.
- From a content-oriented point of view, some researchers see that IT only produces competitive advantage if embedded with other valuable and unique resources. While others see that a unique system can be itself a source of competitive advantage. For example an in-house created system like CBS in SCAP.
- While...
View Full Essay