VENTAJA COMPETITIVA: LA IMPORTANCIA DEL ENTORNO

Sin enfocarse como punto de lanza en la construcción de las características y estrategias seguidas por la competencia; lo que a lo sumo nos llegaría a la IMITACIÓN estamos de acuerdo en el valor que implica la EVALUACIÓN DEL ENTORNO COMPETITIVO, a modo de identificar nuestra posición y cuantificar las propias FUERZAS INTERNAS (Recursos, Competencias, Factores y Capacidades Clave). 

Para ello contamos con una herramienta básica VRIO FRAME WORK que CONSIDERA 4 ASPECTOS BÁSICOS:

• Valioso: ¿En qué medida las capacidades son apreciadas y valiosas para el cliente?
• Raro (escaso): en qué medida un recurso es escaso. ¿Cuántos competidores poseen el mismo recurso o capacidad?
• Inimitable: ¿son fáciles de imitar?
• Organización: ¿en qué medida se organiza adecuadamente la empresa como para aprovechar sus recursos y capacidades?

AQUI anexo un análisis de APPLE con su producto IPHONE y la valuación realizada por Brian Lubeck
John Nitz, Jeff Danforth y Josh Brannon


To gain competitive advantage over its competitors, Apple will have to look into its internal advantages as well as its external advantages.  There are three main internal advantages that Apple has focused on in its design for the iPhone.  These three advantages are the Apple brand name, the simplicity of it user interface, and the advanced technology incorporated into its design.

Resources and Competencies	Value	Rarity	Imitability	Organization	Competitive Advantage
Brand Name	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Sustained
Simplicity	Yes	No	No	Yes	Parity
Hardware	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Temporary
Software	Yes	No	No	No	Parity

Value
The target of the iPhone is to combine the communications ability of a phone with the Internet, data storage, and dissemination capabilities of a computer and the compact and quick access features of a PDA.  In addition, they wanted to make it fast and easy to use.  Since the introduction, they have added the features of their other products such as the music playback and photo viewing of the iPod.  The biggest value here is that the iPhone combines so many things people had to carry with them into one portable device.

Rarity
There are many products competing with the iPhone that are much cheaper.  Apple has been using their reputation of providing quality, glitch-free products and the hype of owning Apple products as being a status symbol among young adults to make their product worth the extra money.  Unfortunately, they have been failing to provide the former recently as glitches have begun to surface.  They have been releasing updates to fix these glitches but just recently, a design flaw was discovered.  The iPhone has been experiencing call dropping problems and slow Internet connection speeds and until last week, they had been pointing the finger at the service provider, AT&T.  However, the real problem was discovered to be the chip that managed the devices operations (McLean, 2008).  This could cause Apple’s reputation to suffer and they could lose some of their market share for a while but since the operations chip is replaceable, this design flaw can be easily repaired in future models.  In the meantime, it is likely that the hype of owning Apple products and the simplicity of the phone functions will continue to keep their sales high.

Imitability
There are very few other products on the market capable of providing the features of the iPhone.  The new LG Dare is most likely going to be the iPhones biggest competitor (Zeman, 2008).  It will be especially tough competition since not only does it have the closest reproduction of the touch screen feature out of the iPhones imitators, but it also has more advanced multimedia capabilities in its camera and video recording equipment.  Since the iPhone was designed to do a large number of things well, its competitors are able to incorporate the basics of the iPhone while focusing on improving one aspect and pushing sales on that feature.
Now, Google has released a phone of its own named the T-Mobile G1 (Quittner, 2008).  It is expected to give the iPhone quite the run for its money.  Though it is a new product and no one can tell how well it will do so early on, it has two features that the iPhone doesn’t have.  The first is an open platform for customization.  Though Apple has relied on third-party applications for the iPhone, they have to be approved by Apple, which gives consumers fewer options.  On the other hand, it also means that the programs Apple releases should be safe to install on your iPhone but they have already lost some of that appeal, as they have had to recall some of the applications they approved due to malfunctions.
The other bonus that the G1 holds over the iPhone is a cut-and-paste function which may not seem like much but to a market that has voiced an interest in it; it can tip the scales out of Apple’s favor.  This shows that Google has done a better job of listening to the market.
Regardless of how much it costs to imitate the iPhone, the market demand is so huge that people are willing look at competitive alternatives.  In addition, all of the companies attempting to imitate the iPhone have gotten the chance to see Apple’s initial mistakes and can, therefore, avoid them.

Organization
Apple has done an excellent job of exploiting its Brand Name which is its biggest competitive advantage.  In addition, it has kept in line with the ideals of its brand name which includes simplistic user interfaces and long lasting, glitch-free hardware, despite the one piece of malfunctioning hardware that is easily replaced in future models.  However, Apple is trying to exploit the applications market by forcing their customers to only buy programs that it provides.  This is the same tactic Apple used with iTunes and the iPod, only in that case, iTunes was the best and easiest music library application available.  In addition, it was free.  This same tactic will not work with the iPhone.