John Hagel III and John Seely Brown, co-authors of the book The Only Sustainable Edge: Why Business Strategy Depends on Productive Friction and Dynamic Specialization, take a negative view of corporate strategies centered around geographies (there - I've tied back to my distributed work theme). He also doesn't think much about strategies that are tied to core competencies (certain executives might take note here!). Instead, the goal should be developing "the capacity to accelerate capability building" - or more simply, the ability to innovate.

The exerpts below are from a June interview published in Wharton's Managing Technology called Can Your Firm Develop a Sustainable Edge? Ask John Hagel and John Seely Brown. (My emphasis added)

"It is the notion that increasingly executives need to think about strategic advantage in dynamic terms as opposed to static terms. While traditionally strategic advantage was based on geographic distance or core competencies, which were typically defined as static, increasingly the only sustainable edge has to do with the capacity to accelerate capability building. Companies must be able to build distinctive capabilities more rapidly than anyone else. What we focus on are management techniques that are emerging to help build that kind of dynamic strategic advantage."

on distributed collaboration:

"One of the questions we ask ourselves is, how do you learn as much from a partner as you learn from creating something yourself. This puts a new spin on why distributed collaboration around the world might be critical in creating this sustainable edge."

on the role of firms in the knowledge economy:

"Ultimately what we see is the re-conceiving of the role of the firm. Traditionally the role of the firm has been to increase the efficiency of transaction costs, whereas we see more and more that the firm has to provide opportunities for capability building of the people within the firm. If the firm cannot do that, people will leave and seek out environments that can help them accelerate capability building better. It's a very different way of thinking about what the firm needs to provide to its employees, and the role of the employees within the firm."

11:25:54 AM    
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