Strategic Management

After discussing about Barney’s theory, one point which was brought up in class was about Amazon.com where it hired the entire IT staff of Wal-Mart. Is it duplication, substitute or something else? Well I think its duplication because I think that duplication is not just using the exact same idea; however it is copying the core or base of the idea, and even developing it. Let’s say I am the first person to sell things online, and it was clothing for example. Well it would be a substitution to selling clothing on a retail store, however if anyone intended to sell anything other than clothing online then it would be duplication because the core idea which was selling products online is used by someone else.

When it comes to rareness with Barney, he defines it as possessing valuable resources that competing firms don’t have. Well, with today’s technology and high competition (because of Globalization), it is hard for a company to gain any rareness in its resources. As soon as an idea is put, competitors will imitate instantly. Also, it is very costly to have it. So a question is usually asked before this rare idea is implemented; is it worth it to invest all this money for it? Just like The GAP when it invested 10 million on a project which could be imitated instantly. This high growth of technology and competition could make it costly and not useful for companies to invest in such large projects. These projects will only give a rare resource which will last for a short period of time.