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The increasing liberalization of markets coupled with the creation of new markets for intermediate products is stripping firm-level competitive advantage back to its fundamental core: difficult to create and difficult to imitate intangible assets. This article explores these developments and elucidates implications for the management of intellectual capital inside firms.

The biotechnology and pharmaceutical fields are rife with a wide range of collaborative relationships intended to access knowledge, skills, and resources that cannot be produced by organizations internally in a timely fashion. As more firms rely on external relationships for knowledge, the ability to process, transfer, and transmit knowledge gained in one context to other activities becomes critical. This article examines the capability for learning both how and what to learn in the context of these inter-organizational relations, and it surveys various practices developed by companies for accessing and distributing knowledge. The key challenge in innovation-intensive fields is to develop organizational routines for learning that are robust, flexible, and durable.

This article deals with the role of purchase-supply relations in organizational learning and knowledge-creation in Japan and how such relations are currently undergoing change. Drawing on interviews with managers, it presents case studies of the customer-supplier partnerships of three prominent Japanese manufacturing firms: Hitachi, Matsushita, and Toyota. The Hitachi case illustrates in a somewhat novel way the prevailing paradigm of how long-term, high-trust supply relations in Japan enhance organizational knowledge creation, learning, and innovation. The Toyota and Matsushita cases demonstrate that the dynamics of learning are behind two very different kinds of change in keiretsu supply networks. Toyota's evolving relationship with long-term partner Denso Corporation appears to fit the popular view that globalization and technological change are eroding Japanese keiretsu ties. The Matsushita case, by contrast, demonstrates that these same forces of change in other industrial settings may in fact be strengthening keiretsu-style partnerships.

Empresas CAP began as a private-sector steel company in 1946. Over the next 40 years, CAP's ownership structure moved from nationalization to reprivatization. Unrestricted by state ownership, CAP began to diversify its holdings. The case considers the viability of CAP's diversification into forestry, and the course of action that CEO Roberto de Andraca should take.

Tyco, a diversified U.S. conglomerate, has grown rapidly for more than 20 years. This case examines Tyco's acquisition strategy as well as its internal control systems.

For managers in large, well-established businesses, the Internet is a tough nut to crack. It is very simple to set up a Web presence and very difficult to create a Web-based business model. Established businesses that over decades have carefully built brands and physical distribution relationships risk damaging all they have created when they pursue commerce through the Net. Still, managers can't avoid the impact of electronic commerce on their businesses. They need to understand the opportunities available to them and recognize how their companies may be vulnerable if rivals seize those opportunities first. Shikhar Ghosh, founder and CEO of Open Market, says the Internet presents four distinct types of opportunities: 1) it links companies directly to customers, suppliers, and other interested parties; 2) it lets companies bypass other players in an industry's value chain; 3) it is a tool for developing and delivering new products and services to new customers; and 4) it will enable certain companies to dominate the electronic channel of an entire industry or segment, control access to customers, and set business rules. As he elaborates on these four points, the author gives established companies a systematic way to sort through the risks and rewards of doing business in cyberspace.

This interview offers a deeper look inside Dell's highly publicized success and offers managers a model of how traditional relationships in a value chain can be reconceived in the Information Age. The individual pieces of Dell Computer's strategy--customer focus, supplier partnerships, mass customization, just-in-time manufacturing--may all be familiar. But Michael Dell's business insight about how to combine them is highly innovative: Technology is enabling coordination across company boundaries to achieve new levels of efficiency and productivity, as well as extraordinary returns to investors. In this HBR interview, Michael Dell describes to HBR editor-at-large, Joan Magretta, how his company is achieving "virtual integration" with its customers and suppliers. Direct relationships with customers create valuable information, which in turn allows the company to coordinate its entire value chain back through manufacturing to product design. Dell describes how his company has come to achieve this tight coordination without the "drag effect" of ownership.

The Tata Group began the 1990s as a confederation of loosely coupled firms. This case considers the rise to prominence of the new CEO of Tata Group, Ratan Tata, and his attempts to strengthen the inter-relationships among the group companies at a time when critics claim he should be dismantling the alliance completely. Provides an opportunity to address the benefits and costs of conglomerates in emerging markets. In particular, it demonstrates the ways in which well-run conglomerates might ameliorate the costs that poorly functioning institutions impose through their effects on market efficiency.

In the wake of a highly successful quarter, senior managers of Airborne Express, the third largest player in the express mail industry, review the firm's competitive position. Airborne has survived, and recently prospered, in an industry with significant economies of scale even though it is much smaller than industry giants Federal Express and United Parcel Service. The case challenges students to understand Airborne's unusual position. Detailed data allow students to analyze Airborne's relative cost position, the fit among its activities, the differences between Airborne and its rivals, and the evolution of its industry. Using these analyses, students make recommendations concerning the firm's pricing policy, its globalization efforts, and a partnership with a related company. Designed to be taught in a course on business-unit strategy.

An agreement signed in 1993 allowed AT&T to re-enter the Chinese telecommunications equipment market. Bill Warwick, the CEO of AT&T China, faces three interrelated challenges in building a business there. The first is how to compete with established, lower-cost rivals in a market with fierce price competition. Second is how to achieve coordination among AT&T's very independent business units to serve the Chinese market. Third is what role to take in the debate about linking renewal of China's most-favored-nation status to its human rights record. In the background is the issue of whether AT&T ought to be in China.

Multimedia Development Corporation was established to build and regulate the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) in Malaysia. As Malaysia's traditional manufacturing advantage due to low-cost labor dissipated and as the country targeted the year 2020 for achieving developed status, the MSC was being viewed as the catalyst to launch the Malaysian economy into the future. Malaysia's government hoped the MSC could become a hub for high technology in Southeast Asia. It was now necessary to involve private sector corporations in refining the MSC concept, setting priorities for development, and establishing the standards that would be imposed on activities in the MSC.

A firm such as Schering-Plough that earns superior, long-run financial returns within its industry is said to enjoy a competitive advantage over its rivals. This note examines the logic of how firms create competitive advantage. It emphasizes two themes: First, to create an advantage, a firm must configure itself to do something unique and valuable. The firm must ensure that, were it to disappear, someone in its network of suppliers, customers, and complementors would miss it and no one could replace it perfectly. The first section uses the concept of "added value" to make this point more precisely. Second, competitive advantage usually comes from the full range of a firm's activities--from production to finance, from marketing to logistics--acting in harmony. The essence of creating advantage is finding an integrated set of choices that distinguishes a firm from its rivals. The second section shows how managers can analyze the full range of activities to understand the sources of added value.

Viacom has built a powerful position in the global entertainment industry through skillful and bold acquisitions. Now its expansion is challenged by the moves of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. Different businesses within Viacom have contradictory positions on how to deal with major opportunities and how Viacom top management should manage the decision-making process.

In this case, the president of Bolivia and a team of officials grapple with questions of how to set up a model for privatizing a number of state-owned enterprises. In the 1980s, Bolivia, like most other Latin American countries, embraced a more market-oriented development strategy that required the state to intervene less in the economy and to focus more on the essential tasks of government. In the case, privatization is high on the leadership's policy agenda in large part because it is the "unfinished business" of the neo-liberal economic reform program that was first adopted in 1985. In addition, the president has a number of specific goals he wishes to achieve through the process of privatization, such as eliminating a large source of public sector corruption and responding to problems of poverty and inequity in the country. HKS Case Number 1447.0

Discusses the successful turnaround of Adidas. Describes the financial and competitive situation of Adidas and the sporting goods industry in 1993 when Robert Louis-Dreyfus, CEO, takes over the management of the company. Adidas is in economic and organizational disarray and Louis-Dreyfus' challenge is to turn the company around from its current deficit of close to $100 million. Can he do it? What changes should he make?

Kevin Coyne and Renee Dye, consultants at McKinsey, show how customers use networks in different ways and explain how companies can adjust their strategies according to the usage patterns in their networks. Managers of network-based businesses--defined here as those that move people, goods, or information from many points to many others--need to know the underlying economic framework of their network, because this can differ substantially from what works for traditional, stand-alone businesses. Managers have long assumed that customers valued all links in these networks equally. Intuitively, managers thought that many of their customers' needs were, in reality, narrower, but they had no way of knowing which links were most important. New computing power and robust mapping software now make it possible to understand network customers better. In applying this technology, the authors have uncovered three distinct usage patterns: one in which all links are, indeed, valued equally; another in which customers concentrate their use in particular zones; and a third in which customers value only individual links. Those managers who don't spot the patterns or understand their strategic implications will find themselves on the losing end of the network battle.

Cathay Pacific's Data Centre, located in Hong Kong, had experienced an explosion and fire that disrupted normal business for 13 hours. In the search for a more secure location, the problems with finding suitable offices in Hong Kong were highlighted, while the benefits and advantages offered by other countries presented the company with the option of relocating the data center offshore.

This study of 453 supplier-automaker relationships in the United States, Japan, and Korea examines the extent to which automakers manage their "arm's-length" and "partner" suppliers differently. The findings indicate that U.S. automakers have historically managed the majority of their suppliers using an arm's-length model, Korean automakers have managed suppliers primarily as partners, and Japanese automakers have somewhat different relationships with suppliers depending on the nature (i.e., degree of asset specificity and value) of the component. Only Japanese automakers have strategically segmented suppliers in such a way as to realize many of the benefits of both the arm's-length as well as the partner models. Firms should think strategically about supplier management and should not have a "one-size fits-all" strategy for supplier management.

Does the Braun plaque removal (electronic toothbrush) product under development have a chance against the dominant American player, Interplak? Under an innovative female project manager, the Braun team has come to a decision point that is made urgent by the recent purchase of Interplak by Bausch & Lomb, a major company with a threatening presence in Europe. Looking at the product development process, the "product semantics" of the current design (does it communicate superior value to the consumer?), the technical problems yet to be solved, and the pressure to follow the Interplak lead, students have to develop a product strategy that fits the competitive situation and the competency and character of the company.

How does one determine the size of a "window of opportunity?" How does one determine what kind of risk is appropriate? Braun's new plaque remover is almost ready to be approved for manufacture and scheduled for launch, but toothpaste is still eating away at the tiny gears in the toothbrush head. Given the imminent launch of its formidable competitor into Europe, Braun wants to enter the market as soon as possible with what it believes is otherwise a superior product. Should Braun launch as planned, knowing that it will correct the gear problem shortly, or should Braun delay the launch until the problem is 100% solved? Some members of management, trusting Braun's engineers, tend toward the former, given the apparently small window of opportunity, whereas Ms. Valiaho, project manager, favors the latter. At this intersection of technology, design, and marketing, students are challenged to struggle with how to make such a decision. They are also encouraged to think about how product strategies, implicit or explicit, influence management decisions.