Question

The Anatomy of competitive advantage, An illustration of the SELECT framework. Based on Ma (1999: 710)

Answer 1

A company with a competitive advantage in the market will have an upper hand and also the freedom to try to new things to attract the customers. This advantage will act as a basis for the improved performance of the company. A short-term advantage will only take the company a small distance so the business will have to look for a competitive advantage that can be long-term and sustainable for the business. So the business managers need to understand how they can create this long-term competitive advantage for the company so that they can stay at the top of the table for a long time. The managers can basically make use of the SELECT framework to analyze the different factors that can have an impact on the competitive advantage. The SELECT model basically consists of substance, expression, locale, effect, cause, and time?span. According to this framework, a company can build a better competitive advantage by studying the substance, expression, locale, and effect. Studying the time span will allow the company to fully exploit the advantage according to its potential and sustainability. So these factors combined together will act as a platform that makes way for the company to know what is best for them in the long run.