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Competencies What the firm is good at doing. A key part of strategic
planning for market dominance should be devoted to assessing:

What competencies will enable us to best exploit current markets? Which
do we have and which must we build? What competencies will we need to
exploit the most exciting markets of the future? And what competencies do
we need to build to create the rules by which others have to play if they
wish to compete?

Competitive advantage Usually taken by marketers to be a cost advan-
tage, a price advantage or both. On the internet savings can produce major
cost advantages that can be applied to ensure that customers are so
delighted that they see no need to even look elsewhere for what they buy
from you. In the real world competitive advantage is a matter of doing
things better at lower cost and is a function of productivity combined with
customer and staff loyalty.

Conglomerate Usually an international corporation with diverse busi-
ness interests. Now loosely used to replace the word “multi-national”.

Consortium A strategic alliance, sometimes short-term, to offer a better
range of competencies to the marketplace than any one member is able to
offer alone.

Core workers (knowledge workers) Those who have the capacity to
make a major contribution to the success of the firm. Core workers have
too often been limited in some company-think as the technical experts.
This is fine as long as it does not lead to a low estimate of the worth of
others. Arie de Geus has shown that firms that prosper for hundreds of
years treat all their people as “knowledge workers” and develop a culture
enriched by life-long learning.

Corporate Alzheimer’s The loss to a company of essential, but
unrecorded knowledge when downsizing has occurred and those with the
most experience have left taking their understanding of customers, mar-
kets and systems with them.

Critical success factors The key areas of focus in a business. A firm
that loses focus is heading for trouble as it applies its resources ineffec-
tively.

Culture “How we do things around here.” An unwritten set of rules and
values that dictate corporate behaviour. Like a company’s image it is
expensive and difficult to change.

Current assets Those assets of a company that are, or can be, readily
turned into cash (cash at bank, share/stock holdings in other companies,
current stocks and debtors).

Customer proposition Why a particular segment or sector should buy
your product or service in preference to any other. The customer proposi-
tion should always be clearly stated online or off. In simple terms it is the

234 Key management questions