Core Competence Needed to Provide the Competetive Advantage Essay

Core Competence Needed to Provide the Competetive Advantage - Essay Example Company Dossier 1). Off late, R&D section of Sony had lagged behind in strides it used to make in the 1960s with such innovative products as Trinitron and WEGA in the 1990s by using the state-of-the-art technology to be the leader of the horizon of consumer electronics market. With the arrival of digital technology, Sony has lagged behind the competitors in television market. Change in people’s attitude becomes evident unlike the 1940s when brand recognition was the major reason of Sony’s better sales performance. Younger generation takes purchase decision considering a number of factors. Without presenting distinct features, Sony cannot lure the buyers and scope of presenting such features in the digital environment is quite limited. The Korean competitors Samsung and LG are leading the race for market space to Sony in television market. A comparison of the LCD television market can help in finding the causes of Sony’s lost ground (Chang 5). Samsung and LG Elect ronics have been the leading producers in the flat-screen TV market in 2010, which includes liquid-crystal display (LCD) TVs and plasma display panel (PDP) TVs. Samsung Electronics captured 18.7% market of the flat-screen TVs sold worldwide in2010, the second-in-lead LG were able to capture 13.1% while Sony could gain access to 10.3% share of total flat screen market. This scenario reiterates that Sony is losing ground to its Korean competitors in LCD TV (Asia Pulse par. 3). Analyzing the technological causes of Sony’s lagging behind Samsung is the advantage it has from its Motion Adaptive Dimming algorithm which saves 20 percent electricity through the LED brightness. Comparatively, technology at Samsung is more sophisticated than Sony’s Bravia range. Samsung has mastered the leading technologies through its R&D in LCD technologies. Such features as Motion adaptive dimming and edge-lit LED LCD TVs add to the competitive advantage of Samsung. Let us analyze the cause o f Sony receding back from the top position in the LCD television market. During the 1990s the television technology shifted from analog to digital. Sony had invested hugely on its analog technologies for the WEGA line, which was the leading product line of the time. Use of microprocessors made digital TVs more like Personal Computers rather than analog TVs. That time Samsung had gained expertise in the production of DRAM and semiconductors and were capable of introducing LCD TV. By 1996 Sony had taken advances in conducting research on flat panel display technologies in partnership with Tektronix in the U.S. It was the decision of the Sony management not to make advances in LCD technologies, which proved costly. Management at Sony was of the view that PDP and LCD panels were products more suitable to be outsourced to third party for effective supply rather than produced in-house. It concentrated efforts on developing organic light-emitting displays (OLED) (Chang 6). Sony had to pay dearly for its decision later in 2002. Samsung by that time had gained core competency in the production of LCD. It was a leading producer of flat-screen computer monitors and had the capability to gain key supplies of plasma. The technological advantage of flat-panel display manufacturing lies in making semiconductors than regular television sets. Sony made slow advances towards plasma and LCD sets, and could not leverage from its own production units. As a consequence, it has to depend on outsourced suppliers to produce its TVs. The change from