Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index

Sustainable competitive advantage

In marketing, sustainable competitive advantage is an advantage that one firm has relative to competing firms. It usually originates in a core competency. To be really effective, the advantage must be:
  1. difficult to mimic
  2. unique
  3. sustainable
  4. superior to the competition
  5. applicable to multiple situations

Examples of company characteristics that could constitute a sustainable competitive advantage include: The list of potential sustainable competitive advantage characteristics is very long. However there are some commentators that claim that in a fast changing competitive world, none of these advantages can be sustained in the long run. They claim that the only truly sustainable competitive advantage is to build an organization that is so alert and so agile that it will always be able to find an advantage, no matter what changes occur.

see also: marketing, marketing management, core competency, positioning, marketing mix, marketing plan

List of Marketing TopicsList of Management Topics
List of Economics TopicsList of Accounting Topics
List of Finance TopicsList of Economists