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During the past decade there has been a fundamental shift in how firms think about strategy—a shift towards core
competencies. Many firms now focus on one or two
core competencies as their source of competitive advantage. What happens when the world no longer values that core competence? Increasingly information
technology contributes to the devaluation of these competencies at the same time as new
technologies create new business opportunities. This paper explores the impact of information technology on two
fundamental types of core competencies—expertise
and information—as well as how quickly technology decays the value of these assets
(i.e. their half-life). When the half-lives of both information and expertise reduce
together, the strategic impacts are huge. Consequently, firms must increasingly focus
on those skills that may be relevant in the future evolution of the industry, but that
they do not possess: core incompetencies. |
