COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN MOBILE PHONE INDUSTRY (Focus on Value Chain and Core Competency)

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE IN MOBILE PHONE INDUSTRY (Focus on Value Chain and Core Competency) V. V. Vara Prasad1 and P. K. Sahoo2 1Associate Professor, and HoD, Department of P.G. Courses-MBAFormer Group General Manager, Globe Investments Ltd., Malawi, Central Africa E-mail: [email protected] 2Vice-Chancellor, Utkal University, Vani Vihar, Bhubaneswar-751 004, Orissa E-mail: [email protected] Modern day Business demands competitive advantage that shall provide the much needed vigor for any industry player, whether a new entrant or an existing organisation. The reason is simple; the fierce competition is threatening to put pressure on pricing and thereby adversely dragging down the profit margins, it is but vital for the industry players to set right the back-end operations while improving the front-end competitiveness. The two concepts of Strategic Management as propagated by Michel E Porter, Viz., Value Chain Analysis and Core Competency for competitive advantage have gained the significance in almost all the areas of business and mobile phone industry is no exception to this. While mobile phone industry on one hand seems to be providing promising growth rates YoY (Year-on-Year), the competition is also brewing up from all types of companies, both MNCs (Multi National Corporations) as well small players who just assemble and sell. The inflow of cheap yet durable Chinese products are another threat that is common now-a-days to any industry, has its influence on Mobile Phone numbers also. Under the given scenario, the concepts of value chain analysis and developing a core competency shall give immense boost to the companies’ performance from the costing as well as marketing point of view. Where as value chain analysis shall tighten the operations and have strict vigil on the costs, the competitive advantage can gain market advantage—combination of both the strategies shall help withstand the competition and survive. The present paper tries to examine the significance of Value Chain Analysis and Core Competency from the point of view of mobile phone industry and make recommendations for improvement of performance parameters.