ACCA Strategic Professional · Strategic Business Leader · The internal resources, capabilities and competences of an organisation
Tessera Logistics has a fleet of modern trucks, a strong brand and a skilled workforce. Competitors can buy equivalent trucks and hire similar staff. However, Tessera's integrated routing, depot coordination and customer-service routines, built up over fifteen years, mean it delivers 98% on time against an industry level of 85%. According to the resource-based view, what best explains Tessera's sustained advantage?
Tessera's sustained advantage comes from distinctive competences: the way it links and deploys ordinary resources through routing, depot coordination and service routines developed over many years. Trucks and staff can be bought by rivals, but the embedded, complex combination is hard to imitate.
- AIts ownership of trucks, since tangible resources are the main source of advantage
- BIts threshold resources, which every competitor needs to compete
- CIts distinctive competences in how resources are linked and deployed, which are hard to imitateCorrect
- DIts low barriers to entry, which allow it to attract more customers
Explanation
Resources that can be bought, such as trucks, are not the source of sustained advantage. The advantage lies in the complex, historically built linkage of activities, which is causally ambiguous and hard to imitate. This is a distinctive competence rather than a threshold one.
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