AT&T’s Resources and Capabilities Essay

AT&T is one of the largest tele talk engagement provider in the world and they ar a commercialize imparter in unite States. Besides the traditional forms of communication worry local and distance call function finished with(predicate) mobile lines or landlines, AT&Ts primary billet is to provide a diversified of telecommunication helpings to American customers and their services includes Wi-Fi, high speed internet, internet TV, fiber optics, satellites, role and cloud services with a whole suite of IP-based occupation communication services. They were established back in 1876 when Alex Graham Bell first invented telephone. unneurotic with the group of AT&T subsidiaries, they make believe over 105 trillion ratifiers in 225 countries and close to 250,000 employees planetary (AT&T, 2014). consort to the (Plunket Research, 2013), the market take account worldwide for telecommunication patience in 2013 was USD 5 trillion and the market value for joined States alone wa s USD 1.2 trillion. Technology has been an integral part of our daily deportment and it is widely used in all business organizations. 91% of adults in United States owned a cell phone (Pew Research, 2013) and the telecommunication industry whitethorn seems to be an attractive industry with the increase demand of such product and services. However, due to the rapidly scientific evolution, this is a highly emulous market to sustain competiveness in the market.For example, AT&Ts business evolves around technologies, there is shift of demand in the consumer market consumers feature switch to use instant messaging services like whatapps sooner of talking over the phone or short messaging services. AT&T must be satisfactory to utilize alternate strategies to endure customers need before antagonists. though there be four major(ip) players in the telecommunication industry, AT&Ts main competitor is Verizon they have similar pecuniary strength and market shargon maculation Sprin t and T-mobile hold a very small percentage of the market sh be. When profligate resources in an industry argon homogenous, warlike advantages cannot exist (Bain, 1956). To pass as the market addresser, AT&T needs to have sustain able belligerent advantages against competitors. According to Barney (1991), a upstanding is said to have a competitive advantage when it is implementing a value creating strategy not concurrently world implemented by any current or authorization competitors. And to sustainable competitive advantages steadfasts have to analyze their intragroup environment and implementstrategies that go out exploit their strengths by exploring the external opportunities while neutralizing external threats and void inside weakness. Porter (2005) reinstates that firms result attain competitive advantage by developing a strategy that enable them to have a unequaled marketing position. Kanter (1999) also argue that to sustain competitiveness in the market, fir m must innovate in an accelerating rate.Resources and Capabilities Leading AT&T the market place LeaderThe resource-based view (RBV) strategy analyzes a firms internal resources that may potentially be the key resources that can have a competitive advantage. And in order to sustain a competitive advantage, a firm must have unique resources (Barney, 2004). RBV strategy is used to rate the internal capabilities on an organization resources and competences (Barney, 2001). Resources are productive assets owned by the firm capabilities are what the firm can do (Grant and Jordon, 2012). By applying Barneys (1991) VRIN frame melt, we can determine whether the internal resources will set in to the firms strategic capability. They four key attributes of the VRIN framework are (1) Valuable exploits competitive opportunities (2) Rare they must be rare in the competitive environment (3) In-imitable competitors cannot transcript the sources (4) Non-substitutable must not be easily replaceab le by alternate products. The key resources AT&T getes are the strong financial resources, extensive mesh topology infrastructure, query and schooling facilities, forgiving resources, unique culture, smirch image and intellectual properties.Resources are then classified into veridical assets or intangible assets and they must be heterogeneous and immobile to have sustainable competitive advantages. For AT&T to achieve strategic capability, we need to gauge AT&T internal resources and their capability to achieve well with those resources. meet resources alone or capability alone will not lead to strategic capability. Over the decades, AT&T has construct different network platform worldwide to support a range of wireless articulation and selective information capabilities. They have the widest network coverage, with to a greater extent than 18,000 WiFi hotspots in 42 countries. In the United States, AT&Ts customers can rise to power to free WiFi services at many popular r epair places like Starbucks, Borders and McDonalds. AT&T is also financially strong to apparel of their networkinfrastructure. They have invested billions of dollars to install fiber optic melody countrywide to provide customer a much faster and stable network connection. Lieberman and Montgonmerys (1998) first-mover theory state that firm may have competitive advantages through new innovations. AT&T was the first to introduce 4G networks in the nation and they are the first and only gild who has the resources and capability to restore the network issue in the event of natural disaster.They have build their reputation and brand in the industry over the years and are known as a technology leader with new innovations. existence the first-mover, AT&T has built customers confidence by being perceived as the industry leader who can deliver supernumerary value to consumers thus reduce rivalry competition. For example, AT&T was certified by Department of Homeland Security for their Network Disaster Recovery political program and US Navy awarded them a 10.4 million contract for the cloud-based voice-over IP recently. monetary and network infrastructure are key tangible assets to AT&T, they are extremely valuable to AT&T as these primary resources compound with their intangible assets to achieve competitive advantage. Physical resources as such may confer little advantage to company for long term. For example, rival like Verizon, who has the similar financial capabilities may soon acquire similar assets. Verizon has already starting building the 4G networks. Acquisitions and nuclear fusion reactions are a lot strategies in big firm. slopped financial resources give AT&T the capability to acquire different companies to strengthen their portfolio by supplement on external capabilities. AT&T has announced to acquire DirecTV, the biggest cable television provider to strengthen their portfolio.Though AT&T provides cable television services, they have less tha n 6 million subscriber in their U-Verse bundle package, which include mesh, landlines and cable TV. The merger of DirecTV increase AT&Ts cable television subscriber four time more than their U-Verse and an additional 18 million cable television subscriber in South America (Forbes, 2014) by leveraging on the DirecTVs existing network infrastructure and customer data based. There are high risks in every merger, many firms failed because company are unable to integrate. I believed that AT&T will successfully integrate these businesses together and will be able to deliver additional value to the customer by providing an integrated solution and extend to more subscribers. Unlike tangible assets, intangible assets like gentle resource, branding, intellectual properties, research and developments do not have a financial value and often the intangible assets are undervalued and yet contribute much more than the tangible assets. AT&T is the close to valuable brand in Texas, with a value of 45 billion (Jean, 2014). Through various strategies, they have built a great reputation and brand recognition in the United States over the century. AT&T has the exclusivity distribution of Iphone when Apple first launched them in the market. AT&T has the upper hand in terms of business negotiation and bargaining power of suppliers are low due to the AT&Ts extensive customer base and their brand.Porter (2005) argues that specialty strategies give the firm competitive advantages against rivals. Being unique and different will also lead to higher profitability by demanding higher price. AT&T differentiates them from rivalry by highly instructioning on research, development and customer-centric approach. AT&T has invested heavily in their research and development research lab and they have 1300 of the worlds best scientist and engineers. AT&Ts researcher has contributed to the industry with many new inventions since 1901 and they made major technological inventions like communicati on satellite and solar cell that changes the way technologies work. According to Barney (1999) A firm comes valuable and rare resources because of its unique path through history, it will be able to exploit these resources in implementing value-creating strategies that cannot be duplicate by others and A firm with scientists who are uniquely positioned to create or exploit a significant science breakthrough may obtain an imperfectly imitable resource from the history-dependent nature of these scientists individual human jacket crown. Since AT&T is a network company, research and development will be one of the most valuable resources to the firm.Besides new innovations, catch customers need is equally important. Some other key development focus includes increase process automation and consolidation, improve and enhance customer experience. skill to deliver new technology and offer alternate products and services that violate suit the customer needs is the key strategy to stay f ore of competitors. AT&T is rated as the company with the best customer service experience in the industry and AT&Ts customers are the first in the industry to have e-commerce services they are able to view their bills online and also haveadded features like bill sorting by categories, request service updates and many more. Intangible assets like intellectual property, trademarks, copyrights and patents do not have an asset value, but they extremely valuable, rare, in-imitable and non-substitutable. Having heavily invested in research and development, these patents give AT&T the exclusive right to nurture their innovations. AT&T has more than 5,000 registered patents and trademarks they have 3 patents registered averagely per day. Grant (2005) describes human resource as the productive services offered to the firms by human being through their skills, knowledge, reasoning and decision-making abilities. Besides the scientist and engineers in the AT&T Lab, AT&T has employees from a d iversify background that has different potential to contribute to the organization in different business function. Continue training and genteelness will ensure that employees will have the essential knowledge, and the capability to perform their jobs.There are a variety of training programs specially intentional for the employees of all level and functions. For example, AT&T University provides leadership training to managers at different level, skills development program design from retail sales to engineers. In 2012, AT&T spent 250 million dollars for employees training and development and 28 million for tuition reimbursement to increase the employees knowledge and skills, which can in indemnification transform into the human resource capabilities. It is very difficult to find a right candidate for the right position and it is even harder to adjudge natural endowment in an organization. AT&T has one of the best compensation packages to retain talent, to increase employees lo yalty and decrease employee turnover rate. Barney (2005) recognized that a firms culture is one of the most valuable resources. Culture is the work routines and how organization operates every organization has their own mission, vision, strategies, values, beliefs and behavior. AT&T has a unique culture, they are highly focus in technology, leadership innovation, customer-centric focus, possess high integrity and believe in collaborative teamwork. Embedded capabilities are very likely part of the organization culture and AT&Ts unique culture contributes to the strategic capabilities on the firm. Both human resource and company culture are valuable resources, rare, in-imitable, and non-substitutable.ConclusionA&T is a differentiation leadership, who has superior customer service with the most reliable and fastest services customers are willing to pay a premium price for the best provider. Their core competencies are ability to graduated table the business, creation of new innovation s ahead of competitors, integration of network components, integration of package components and network integration. AT&T has sustainable competitive advantages in the telecommunication industry because they possess inimitable strategic capabilities through complexity of internal and external linkage, with their achievements and past experience in the telecommunication industry, they are able to innovate and stay ahead of competitors. The organization has accumulated knowledge through both formal system and shared experience of people and they are able to integrate into organization capabilities. Due to the complexity of the resources, another firm will able to achieve sustainable competitive advantages with the same material body of resources. For example, Continental Lite tried to imitate Southwests cipher airline, they failed and suffered heavy losses. Similar, even if Verizon have some of AT&Ts employees like the engineers, senior management, and including the same network i nfrastructure, Verizon will not have able to achieve competitive advantages as AT&T because they do not know the linkage of all the core competencies which will lead to failure.ReferencesAT&T (2014) Investors Relations. obtainable from http//www.att.com/gen/investor-relations?pid=5711%5B Accessed 8 June 2014 Bain, J. 1956. Barriers to New Competition. Cambridge, Mass. Harvard University Press. Barney, J.B. 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