動態能力使企業能夠創建、部署和保護那些支持可持續經營優勢的隱性資產。具有強大的動態能力的企業是成功的—不僅表現在能適應業務環境，還表現在能通過與其他實體/公司的合作使他們成長。動態能力可以是：不同的技能，過程/程序，組織結構和程序（如規則/紀律），蒂斯（同上）。我們將分析我的公司的動態能力三個方面的背景：第一：感知和塑造機會。第二：抓住機遇。第三：通過提高、結合、保護和重新配置其資產[有形和無形]來保持競爭力，蒂斯（同上）。一個具體案例就是，行業需要感知實際需求，并把握這個機會，轉化為可利潤。在上個世紀用于電腦程序中的存儲日期由4位數字格式組成，其中只有2位留給年份。在20世紀末快到的時候，含糊和混亂淹沒了整個行業和它的商業前景。

 

Dynamic capabilities enable firms to create, deploy and protect the tacit assets that support sustainable business advantages. Firms with strong dynamic capability are successful -not only in adapting to business-environment but also shape them through collaboration with other entities/firms. Sustainable advantage requires not only possession of VRIO assets (Barney, 1995), but also require unique and in-imitable dynamic capabilities. Foundations of dynamic capabilities could be - distinct skill, process/procedures, organizational-structure and routine (e.g. rule/disciplines), Teece (ibid). we would analyze my firm the context of three aspects of dynamic capabilities - a)To sense and shape opportunities, b) seize opportunities and c) maintain competitiveness through enhancing, combining, protecting and reconfiguring its assets [both tangible and intangible] , Teece (ibid). One practical example of sensing the industry need and reacting to this to turn this opportunity to profit. In the previous century all computer-programs used to store date by a 4-digit format where only 2digit left for Year, at the approach of century-end the ambiguity and confusion overwhelmed the entire industry and its business-landscape [e.g. suppliers, customers and staff] - about how a computer behave to the new-century [with a year as 2000] - this issue, termed as Y2K-bug. CSC responded to this crisis and invested to devise the solution; once available it was presented to customers and accepted. Later my company was engaged with many customers to enhance their software to address this Y2K-bug, generating huge revenue. Not only this - industry itself was benefitted as other IT-firms also follow the approach and earned well. Thus we can argue that dynamic capabilities can shape the industry-landscape.

 

Why and How these capabilities contribute to competitive advantage

 

Ad-hoc problem solving isn't a dynamic capability, nor is a well-known and replicable 'industry best-practice' a dynamic capability - as it can't provide a firm sustainable business advantage, Teece(ibid). Capability could be of two types - technical and evolutionary (Helfat et al, 2007). CSC poses technical capability, which enables it to performs its regular business [e.g. production support for a MNC Bank] whereas evolutionary capability indicates response of the firm to the environment [innovation, sensing opportunities and seize them] thus enabling the firm to achieve competitive advantage. Dynamic capability helps firm to shape the environment and not just adapting to it, Teece (ibid)- example since the very-recent market-inclination towards cloud-computing, CSC has invested to turn this external factor technological-innovation to its strength and developed resource-base [both physical and human] which would give us competitive-advantage in this market. We have acquired the global top-five cloud-SMEs into CSC and thus we are now capable of framing the business-environment. Routines [e.g. new product-development, quality-control, knowledge transfer] could be considered as micro-foundation of dynamic capability (Eisenhardt & Martin, 2000). CSC demonstrates itself in all of these above as follows- quality has always been a key aspect for an IT firm [like us] - we have documented procedures of our activities based on these standards and our experiences gathered through the time, from the various engagements. This knowledge base is freely available to all staff globally. We are a CMMi-ML5 firm which is the highest level of quality-criteria set by industry. CSC always invest in enhancing its resources and capabilities by means of training, industry-meets and meet-the-graduates initiatives. Thus it gets the sense of market-changes and also the changing trend of technologies and then combined we develop our emergent approach to turn this opportunities to realizable revenue.#p#分頁標題#e#

 

How capabilities differ from resources [RBV]?

 

RBV sees organisation as a pool of resources and how well organisation-leadership manages that pool to get competitive advantage Barney (ibid). Dynamic capability introduces idea of innovation which is the ability of the firm's leadership to look at the market and technological advances and get benefitted from that [by adapting its approach] - we see the similarity of emergent approach in where firms need to enhance its approach based on the external factors (Mintzberg and Waters, 1985). A routine is necessary to fully utilize the firm's resources. Firm's growth can be attributed to market and technological factors Teece (ibid). RBV alone can provide a firm competitive advantage - referring Xerox who failed to take advantage of their valuable, rare and costly-to-imitate resources due to lack of its organisational skill, Barney (ibid) - they lack the routine to turn their VRIO resources into business-advantage. Dynamic capabilities refer to the inimitable capacity of a firm to shape/reshape, configure/reconfigure the firm's assets to respond to external factors [e.g. changing market, technologies etc] Teece (ibid). Dynamic capability refers to an inimitable ability of a firm to proactively adapt, to develop and exploit firm-specific competencies and to respond to external business environment, (Teece et al, 1997). If a firm poses VRIO resource but lacks dynamic capabilities it may yield profit in short-turn but difficult to achieve sustainable advantage. Dynamic capability not only include a firms in-imitable VRIO resource but also sense of changing needs, technologies , ability to adapt to it and possibly even to shape its business environment.

 

Competitive advantage - capabilities in the face of technical changes

 

Static competition reflects an intellectual framework but lacks innovation, it usually manifests itself in offering existing products in a less price, Teece,(ibid). Whereas dynamic competition is driven-by innovation - significant product differentiation and rapid response to change in business-landscape, Teece (ibid). having a VRIO resource alone can't assist a firm in having sustainable competitive advantage, it should also poses a routine and a organisational-power to converge this resources towards revenue. Canon - the market-leader in camera industry was challenged by invent of Smartphones who have inbuilt 12 MP camera, now they also responded to this external factors [changing customer need and technological advancement] and introduced cameras with features like touch-screen, direct-upload, GPS tagging etc. GE was once market-leader for transistor-manufacturing but, the invent of semiconductors made them redundant - thus VRIO resource alone cannot provide a firm sustainable competitive advantage. The knowledge sharing and team-work develops tacit-knowledge [which is a dynamic capability] and hard to imitate. Once computer-industry was dominated by IBM, later technological advancements and changing customer needs [user friendliness, size] gave rise of Apple products Barney (ibid) - thus the variable and rare resource of IBM alone only could not provide it the competitive advantage. Nowadays technology is driving the market - it introduces newer threats e.g. cyber-attack, phishing] to the firms and industry need to exploit these and turn them into revenue. IT firms being innovative and invent newer technologies to curb these threats. Technology introduces new opportunities [cloud, mobile-computing, big-data, virtual-storage] and my firm [and others] are investing to develop new product/services for their customers. Government regulations [based on cyber-threat and technical-developments] are forcing MNCs to invest on security features - like encryption, multi factor authentication and CSC has already positioned itself as market-leader in these services.#p#分頁標題#e#