Thesis Proposal

Introduction

Sustainable competitive advantage is the focal point of your corporate strategy. It allows the maintenance and improvement of your enterprise's competitive position in the market.

It is an advantage that enables business to survive against its competition over a long period of time.

Distinctive capabilities are the basis of your competitive advantage. According to the new resource-based view of the company, sustainable competitive advantage is achieved by continuously developing existing and creating new resources and capabilities in response to rapidly changing market conditions.

Among these resources and capabilities, in the new economy, knowledge represents the most important value-creating asset.

The opportunity for your company to sustain your competitive advantage is determined by your capabilities of two kinds - distinctive capabilities and reproducible capabilities - and their unique combination you create to achieve synergy. Your distinctive capabilities - the characteristics of your company which cannot be replicated by competitors, or can only be replicated with great difficulty - are the basis of your sustainable competitive advantage. Distinctive capabilities can be of many kinds: patents, exclusive licenses, strong brands, effective leadership, teamwork, or tacit knowledge. Reproducible capabilities are those that can be bought or created by your competitors and thus by themselves cannot be a source of competitive advantage.

Aim of the Research

The aim of this dissertation is to question the sustainable competitive advantage of telecom operators and the viability of open and closed business ecosystems in the telecom industry.

Literature Review

Competitive advantage is a theory that seeks to address some of the criticisms of comparative advantage. Michael Porter proposed the theory in 1990. Competitive advantage theory suggests that states and businesses should pursue policies that create high-quality goods to sell at high prices in the market. Porter emphasizes productivity growth as the focus of national strategies. Competitive advantage rests on the notion that cheap labor is ubiquitous and natural resources are not necessary for a good economy. The other theory, comparative advantage can lead countries to specialize in exporting primary goods and raw materials that trap countries in low-wage economies due to terms of trade. Competitive advantage attempts to correct for this issue by stressing maximizing scale economies in goods and services that garner premium prices (Stutz and Warf 2009).

Competitive advantage occurs when an organization acquires or develops an attribute or combination of attributes that allows it to outperform its competitors. These attributes can include access to natural resources, such as high grade ores or inexpensive power, or access to highly trained and skilled personnel human resources. New technologies such as robotics and information technology either to be included as a part of the product, or to assist making it.

Information technology has become such a prominent part of the modern business world that it can also contribute to competitive advantage by outperforming competitors with regard to internet presence. From the very beginning, i.e. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, the central problem of information transmittal, leading to the rise of middle-men in the marketplace, has been a significant impediment in gaining competitive advantage. By using the internet as ...