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As with most companies, big pharma firms may encounter difficulty in the short run when
seeking to develop BDA as a core competence. A recent survey suggests that insufficient skills
by senior-level managers to permit a full operational understanding of the BDA process, the
difficulty associated with determining the data that are the most strategically relevant, and an
inability to consistently and quickly gain access to complete and fully accurate data are chal-
lenges requiring attention. Of course, not all big pharma firms will be successful in their efforts
to develop the BDA process as a core competence.
Sources: Big data analytics: What it is & why it matters, 2015, SAS, http://www.sas.com, April 2; Big data for the pharmaceutical
industry, Informatica, http://www.informatica.com, March 17; B. Atkins, 2015, Big data and the board, Wall Street Journal Online,
http://www.wsj.com, April 16; D. Gage, 2015, Zetta Venture Partners closes $60M fund to back data-analytics startups, Wall Street
Journal Online, http://www.wsj.com, February 11; R. King, 2015, Ford wants to sharpen big data skills at its Silicon Valley inno-
vation center, Wall Street Journal Online, http://www.wsj.com, January 22; Are you prepared to make the decisions that matter
most? PcW’s Global Data & Analytics Survey 2014, http://www.pwc.com, November 12; S. F. DeAngelis, 2014, Pharmaceutical big
data analytics promises a healthier future, Enterrasolutions.com, http://www.enterrasolutions.com, June 5; T. Wolfram, 2014, Data
analytics has big pharma rethinking its core competencies, Forbes Online, http://www.forbes.com, December 22.A
s discussed in the first two chapters, several factors in the global economy, includ-
ing the rapid development of the Internet’s capabilities and globalization in gen-
eral, are making it difficult for firms to find ways to develop competitive advantages.^1
Increasingly, innovation appears to be a vital path to efforts to develop competitive
advantages, particularly sustainable ones.^2 Fashion retailer Zara’s ability to produce new
clothing designs quickly is a core competence and also a competitive advantage for the
firm. This ability is a product of innovations the firm established in terms of sophisti-
cated information technologies that are used to track inventories and relying on groups
of creative designers rather than individuals to quickly develop new fashions. The con-
tinual appearance of fresh designs the firm consistently produces through its innovations
results in 17 visits per customer per year in its stores compared to the average of three
visits per year in competitors stores.^3 You will learn more about Zara given that this firm
is the subject of the Mini-Case appearing at the end of this chapter. Innovative actions
will be required by big pharma companies seeking to develop capabilities that can be the
foundation on which the process of big data analytics can become a core competence
(see the Opening Case).
As is the case for Zara and big pharma companies, innovation is critical to firm success.
This means that many firms seek to develop innovation as a core competence. We define
and discuss core competencies in this chapter and explain how firms use their resources
and capabilities to form them. As a core competence, innovation has long been critical
to Boeing’s success, too. Today however, the firm is focusing on incremental innovations
as well as developing new technologies that are linked to major innovations and the
projects they spawn, such as the 787 Dreamliner. The incremental innovations are ones
Boeing believes enable the firm to more quickly deliver reliable products to customers at
a lower cost.^4 Innovation is also becoming more vital to U.S. medical schools. Efforts are
underway for the purpose of identifying methods to use to produce “young doctors who
are better prepared to meet the demands of the nation’s changing health-care system.”^5
As we discuss in this chapter, firms and organizations such as those we mention here,
achieve strategic competitiveness and earn above-average returns by acquiring, bundling,
and leveraging their resources for the purpose of taking advantage of opportunities in the
external environment in ways that create value for customers.^6
Even if the firm develops and manages resources in ways that create core compe-
tencies and competitive advantages, competitors will eventually learn how to duplicate
the benefits of any firm’s value-creating strategy; thus, all competitive advantages have
a limited life.^7 Because of this, the question of duplication of a competitive advantage is