The core competitiveness of an enterprise is the accumulated knowledge and skills in the enterprise organization, especially about how to coordinate different production skills and integrate multiple technical knowledge and skills. It is the ability of an enterprise to develop unique products, develop unique technologies and create unique marketing, which makes the enterprise different in strategy.
Core competitiveness does not only refer to a certain technology, nor is it equivalent to the amount of business resources owned by the enterprise. Having resources does not mean that one has core competitiveness. Core competitiveness is the integration of multiple skills and is a system. It can be considered that the core competitiveness of an enterprise is a combination of the strategic resources owned by an enterprise and its organic ability system based on knowledge learning to obtain strategic resources and effectively integrate strategic resources to gain competitive advantages. The core competitiveness of an enterprise is an institutionalized interdependent and interconnected enterprise knowledge system that can identify and provide competitive advantages. The core competitiveness of an enterprise is formed over a long period of time, contained in the essence of the enterprise, unique to the enterprise, supporting the competitive advantages of the enterprise in the past, present and future, and enabling the enterprise to take the initiative in the competitive environment for a long time. It is a core competitiveness that affects the overall situation.
Core competitiveness is extremely important in the process of enterprise survival and development. An enterprise’s possession of advantageous resources does not mean that it has core competitiveness. This is because not all competitive advantage resources are the core capabilities of an enterprise. Only when these advantages are organized in an effective way by human management skills and fully utilized better than competitors can they play a key role in the success of the enterprise and form core competitiveness. Core competitiveness is different from general competitiveness. It affects the overall development of the enterprise and plays a decisive role in the survival and development of the enterprise. The importance of core competitiveness in the survival and development of an enterprise is determined by its characteristics. The characteristics of core competitiveness make it indispensable to the survival and development of an enterprise. Several characteristics of core competitiveness that are crucial to the survival and development of an enterprise include:
(1) Value. Core competitiveness is of strategic value. It can create higher value for the enterprise, help improve the efficiency of the enterprise, and bring more advantages to the enterprise than its competitors in creating value and reducing costs. It can bring unique value to consumers. From an economic perspective, it provides the most consumer surplus. Having consumers is equivalent to having the market, and the market brings value returns to the enterprise.
(2) Uniqueness. Uniqueness makes it difficult for other companies to imitate and replace the advantages of an enterprise. This is because core competitiveness is the result of the company’s cumulative learning and collective learning. It is deeply imprinted with the company’s organization. It has the characteristics of path dependence and ambiguity, so it is difficult for competitors to imitate. Due to the uniqueness of core competitiveness, the company is always ahead of its competitors, leaving them far behind.
(3) Extensibility. Core competitiveness is not an independent competitiveness. With core competitiveness, a series of capabilities of the company can be promoted, and core competitiveness can support the various products produced or services provided by the company. Extensibility enables the company to have a way to enter multiple potential markets and quickly gain its own competitive advantage in these markets. On the contrary, if a company only has a competitive advantage in one product and cannot share this advantage with other products, then this competitive advantage is not a core competitiveness.