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1、The Core Competence of the CorporationC.K. Prahalad and Gary HamelThe most powerful way to prevail in global competition is still invisible to many companies. During the 1980s, top executives were judged on their ability to restructure, declutter, and delayer their corporations. In the 1990s, theyll
2、 be judged on their ability to identify, cultivate, and exploit the core competencies that make growth possible indeed, theyll have to rethink the concept of the corporation itself.Consider the last ten years of GTE and NEC. In the early 1980s, GTE was well positioned to become a major player in the
3、 evolving information technology industry. It was active in telecommunications. Its operations spanned a variety of businesses including telephones, switching and transmission systems, digital PABX, semiconductors, packet switching, satellites, defense systems, and lighting products. And GTEs Entert
4、ainment Products Group, which produced Sylvania color TVs, had a position in related display technologies. In 1980, GTEs sales were $9.98 billion, and net cash flow was $1.73 billion. NEC, in contrast, was much smaller, at $3.8 billion in sales. It had a comparable technological base and computer bu
5、sinesses, but it had no experience as an operating telecommunications company. Yet look at the positions of GTE and NEC in 1988. GTEs 1988 sales were $16.46 billion, and NECs sales were considerably higher at $21.89 billion. GTE has, in effect, become a telephone operating company with a position in
6、 defense and lighting products. GTEs other businesses are small in global terms. GTE has divested Sylvania TV and Telenet, put switching, transmission, and digital PABX into joint ventures, and closed down semiconductors. As a result, the international position of GTE has eroded. Non U.S. revenue as
7、 a percent of total revenue dropped from 20% to 15% between 1980 and 1988. NEC has emerged as the world leader in semiconductors and as a first tier player in telecommunications products and computers. It has consolidated its position in mainframe computers. It has moved beyond public switching and
8、transmission to include such lifestyle products as mobile telephones, facsimile machines, and laptop computers bridging the gap between telecommunications and office automation. NEC is the only company in the world to be in the top five in revenue in telecommunications, semiconductors, and mainframe
9、s. Why did these two companies, starting with comparable business portfolios, perform so differently? Largely because NEC conceived of itself in terms of core competencies, and GTE did not.Rethinking the Corporation Once, the diversified corporation could simply point its business units at particula
10、r end product markets and admonish them to become world leaders. But with market boundaries changing ever more quickly, targets are elusive and capture is at best temporary. A few companies have proven themselves adept at inventing new markets, quickly entering emerging markets, and dramatically shi
11、fting patterns of customer choice in established markets. These are the ones to emulate. The critical task for management is to create an organization capable of infusing products with irresistible functionality or, better yet, creating products that customers need but have not yet even imagined. Th
12、is is a deceptively difficult task. Ultimately, it requires radical change in the management of major companies. It means, first of all, that top managements of Western companies must assume responsibility for competitive decline. Everyone knows about high interest rates, Japanese protectionism, out
13、dated antitrust laws, obstreperous unions, and impatient investors. What is harder to see, or harder to acknowledge, is how little added momentum companies actually get from political or macroeconomic relief. Both the theory and practice of Western management have created a drag on our forward motio
14、n. It is the principles of management that are in need of reform. NEC versus GTE, again, is instructive and only one of many such comparative cases we analyzed to understand the changing basis for global leadership. Early in the 1970s, NEC articulated a strategic intent to exploit the convergence of
15、 computing and communications, what it called C&C Success, top management reckoned, would hinge on acquiring competencies, particularly in semiconductors. Management adopted an appropriate strategic architecture, summarized by C&C, and then communicated its intent to the whole organization and the o
16、utside world during the mid 1970s. NEC constituted a C&C Committee of top managers to oversee the development of core products and core competencies. NEC put in place coordination groups and committees that cut across the interests of individual businesses. Consistent with its strategic architecture, NEC shifted enormous resources to strengthen its position in components and central processors. By using collaborative arrangements to multiply internal
