Strategy is Like Job-Seeking

Competitive advantage comes from a combination of:
1. what you have, plus
2. how you choose to use it,
to create value for your chosen market.

The phrase “what you have” is a reference to your “strategic assets”. These are not what we normally think of as assets – land, buildings, equipment or “Our people are our greatest asset”.

Strategic assets are unique to the organization and are usually intangible things. They include:

• Intellectual property

• Acquired consumer information

• Lines of capital

• Core competencies (those that are embedded in the organization, not individual staff skills)

• Operational, monitoring, planning, communication or decision systems

• Organizational culture

• Brand awareness

• Brand image and reputation

• Secured distribution

• Relationships with suppliers, customers and intermediaries

Strategic assets are:
• Costly or difficult for competitors to acquire or copy,

• Path dependent – they result from the experience of your business and

• Firm specific – they cannot readily leave with departing staff members or be sold

Whatever strategy you choose must be underpinned by strategic assets which equip you to out-perform your competitors.

Therefore, identifying your strategic assets is a crucial step in developing a strategy.

__Strategic assets often go unrecognized. Innovative strategy depends on your ability to conceptualize your strategic assets in a creative way.__

Here's why strategy is like job-seeking. Most people looking for a job don’t recognize their own strengths. In their resume they provide a list of generic skills and qualities. Mostly, these are bland and superficially-expressed. They do not differentiate the individual from other job-seekers. It is not until they analyse the unique path they have taken and what they have gained as a result, that they can truly describe what they uniquely have to offer an employer.

Don’t get stuck in old ways of conceptualizing “what you have”. Break free from that precedent.