"For me, the metaphor for competitive advantage is a long row of rooms. In this conception, every company, at any given point in time, exists in a room of its own making. The room is defined by the set of questions on which the company is working — and that set of questions is, in turn, defined by what the company understands about the market in which it competes. It understands things about the customers it serves, the technologies it uses, the competitors it faces, the industry in which it operates, etc. That causes it to work on projects and initiatives about which it currently knows. It competes on bases that it knows. It can’t work on things about which it doesn’t know because it can’t pose questions about things it doesn’t realize exist.
But in due course, working diligently on those questions in that room will bring about insights which will allow the company to move through a thick curtain to the next room. In that new room, it has access to questions that only became obvious to the company after it has contemplated and answered the previous questions. There is no other way into that room but through the curtain....It is not easy. You can’t get into the next room just because you want to be there. You have to be thorough and conceptual about your business. You have to answer the questions in your room to get clues about the nature of the questions in the next. That means being endlessly curious about your business — the customers, the technologies, the anomalies, the outliers. Have urgency because it is competitive life or death. If competitors get into the next room before you do, it can be deadly.
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Be very deliberate about the questions you ask about your business. Invest heavily in the activity. Never just do. Do and reflect. Ask yourself, how can I ask more sophisticated questions about my business?
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The goal is to acquire clues as to what is the next set of questions, because when you figure out what those questions are, you can slip through the curtains to the next room. And as long as you are in that room, you have a monumentally valuable lead in the ability to answer the next questions, and get through the next curtains, and so on. If you see any competitor appearing to ask questions that you are not yet asking, that is your signal that you better start understanding those questions because it is a threat to your survival. If they get to operate in the next room before you, it could be all over.
Always think about advantage as ever-evolving. It isn’t a moat. If you think it is, you won’t focus enough on the next room. And the advantage of always being in the next room is truly powerful — a truly renewable resource that is well worth pursuing."
Excelente reflexão de Roger Martin acerca do que é a vantagem competitiva em "What Strategy Questions are You Asking?"
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