1. Introduction
For a company to succeed in the business environment, business strategy plays a vital role along the business operations. In discussing organisations’ business strategy, we first deal with competitive advantage in the way the term first used by Michael Porter in the 1980s (Cowe, Mackeron, Moffat and Douglas, 2011). Competitive advantage defined as an advantage that a firm possesses over its competitors, it helps to generate better profits or margins and / or retain more customers than its competitor. Competitive advantages can establish by cost structure, production / operation process, product offerings, supply chain management and etc (Investopedia, 2012)
Michael Porter had indentified two basic types of competitive advantages, which is cost advantage and differentiation advantage. Cost advantage apply when a firm has the ability to produce a good or service at a lower cost than its rivals, this gives the firm the ability sell its goods or services at a lower price than its rivals or to generate a larger profits or margins on sales. A differentiation advantage is created when a firm provides products or services differ from its competitors and customers see the products better than a competitor’s products. Meanwhile, company’s operating environment and internal capabilities play a major role in building up the competitive advantages. A resource-based view highlights that a company creates competitive advantage by utilizing its resources and capabilities that ultimately results in greater value creation.
To enhance the understanding on competitive advantage, a Malaysia listed company, Silver Bird Group Berhad (SILVER), would be used as a case study to explain how the company’s operating environment and internal capabilities advantage may or may not contribute to the attainment of competitive advantage. The company’s strengths and weaknesses will be identified throughout the case study and we will discuss how competitive...