1. ACHIEVING AND
SUSTAINING COMPETITIVE
ADVANTAGE FOR THE
COLLEGE: FOSTERING CREATIVITY,
INNOVATION, BRAND DEVELOPMENT AND MARKETING
CAPABILITIES AMONGST STAKEHOLDERS
Being a paper presented by Ayodele Samuel Olatiregun
at a 2-day seminar held at
Collective College of Accountancy Ltd, Eleyele
On
July 5, 2009

2. PAPER OUTLINE
 What is Competitive Advantage?
 Achieving Competitive Advantage
 Sustaining Competitive Advantage
 Fostering Creativity amongst Stakeholders
 Fostering Innovation amongst Stakeholders
 Fostering CCA Brand Development amongst
Stakeholders
 Fostering Marketing Capabilities amongst
Stakeholders
 Conclusion

3. WHAT IS COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE?
 Competitive advantage is, in very basic words, a
position a firm occupies against its competitors.
 A competitive advantage exists when the firm is
able to deliver the same benefits as competitors but
at a lower cost (cost advantage), or deliver benefits
that exceed those of competing products
(differentiation advantage). Thus, a competitive
advantage enables the firm to create superior value
for its customers and superior profits for itself

4. WHAT IS COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE?
 According to Michael Porter, the three methods for creating a
sustainable competitive advantage are through:
1. Cost leadership - Cost advantage occurs when a firm
delivers the same services as its competitors but at a lower
cost;
2. Differentiation - Differentiation advantage occurs when a firm
delivers greater services for the same price of its competitors.
They are collectively known as positional advantages because
they denote the firm's position in its industry as a leader in
either superior services or cost;
3. Focus (economics) - A focused approach requires the firm to
concentrate on a narrow, exclusive competitive segment
(market niche), hoping to achieve a local rather than industry
wide competitive advantage. There are cost focus seekers,
who aim to obtain a local cost advantage over competition
and differentiation focuser, who are looking for a local
difference.

5. A MODEL OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE?
Resources
Distinctive
Competencies
Capabilities
Cost Advantage
Or
Differentiation Advantage
Value
Creatio
n

6. RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES
 In order to develop a competitive advantage the
College must have resources and capabilities that
are superior to those of our competitors. Without
this superiority, our competitors simply could
replicate what the College is doing and any
advantage could quickly disappear.

7. RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES
 Resources are the college-specific assets useful
for creating a cost or differentiation advantage that
few competitors can acquire easily. The following
are some examples of such resources:
 Proprietary know-how
 Installed customer base
 Reputation of the College
 Brand equity

8. RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES
 Capabilities refer to the College's ability to utilize
its resources effectively. An example of our
capability is the ability to bring ACCA Nigeria to
Ibadan faster than our competitors. Capabilities are
embedded in the routines of the organization and
are not easily documented as procedures and thus
are difficult for competitors to replicate.

9. DISTINCTIVE COMPETENCIES.
 The College's resources and capabilities together
form its distinctive competencies. These
competencies enable innovation, efficiency, quality,
and customer responsiveness, all of which can be
leveraged to create a cost advantage or a
differentiation advantage

10. ACHIEVING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
 The primary factors of competitive advantage are
innovation, reputation and relationships.
 Engaging in strategic management
 Understanding the strategic position of the College
 Making strategic choices for the future of the College
 Turning strategy into action

11. THE STRATEGIC POSITION
 Is concerned with the impact on strategy of the external
environment, an organisation’s strategic capability
(resources and competences) and the expectations and
influence of stakeholders
Strategi
c
Positio
n
Environmen
t
Expectation
s &
Strategic
Capability

12. STRATEGIC CHOICES
 Involve understanding the underlying bases for future
strategy at both the business unit and corporate levels and
the options for developing strategy in terms of directions and
methods of development
Strategi
c
Choice
s
Business-
level
strategy
Directions &
Methods of
Developme
Corporate-
level &
International
Strategy

13. STRATEGY IN ACTION
 Is concerned with ensuring that strategies are working in
practice
Strateg
y in
Action
Business
Structuring
Managing
Strategic
Change
Enabling
Success

14. SUSTAINING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE (SCA)
 Sustainable competitive advantage is the prolonged
benefit of implementing some unique value-creating
strategy based on unique combination of internal
organizational resources and capabilities that cannot be
replicated by competitors.
 Sustainable competitive advantage allows the
maintenance and improvement of the enterprise's
competitive position in the market. It is an advantage
that enables business to survive against its competition
over a long period of time.

15. SUSTAINING COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
 The Focal Point of Strategy is Sustainable
Competitive Advantage
 Management is committed to creating economic
value to our stakeholders, and the best means to
create that value is to focus on sustainable
competitive advantage as the key.

16. THE FIVE CRITERIA OF SUSTAINABLE
COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
1. unique
2. difficult to replicate
3. sustainable
4. superior to the competition
5. applicable to multiple situations

17. THE FOCAL POINT OF STRATEGY

18. FOSTERING CREATIVITY AMONGST STAKEHOLDERS
 Creativity is a mental and social process involving
the generation of new ideas or concepts, or new
associations of the creative mind between existing
ideas or concepts. Creativity is fueled by the
process of either conscious or unconscious insight.
An alternative conception of creativeness is that it is
simply the act of making something new

19. FOSTERING CREATIVITY AMONGST STAKEHOLDERS
Nickerson provides a summary of the various creativity
techniques that have been proposed. These include
approaches that have been developed by both academia and
industry:
 Establishing purpose and intention
 Building basic skills
 Encouraging acquisitions of domain-specific knowledge
 Stimulating and rewarding curiosity and exploration
 Building motivation, especially internal motivation

20. FOSTERING CREATIVITY AMONGST STAKEHOLDERS
 Encouraging confidence and a willingness to take risks
 Focusing on mastery and self-competition
 Promoting supportable beliefs about creativity
 Providing opportunities for choice and discovery
 Developing self-management (metacognitive skills)
 Teaching techniques and strategies for facilitating
creative performance
 Providing balance

21. FOSTERING INNOVATION AMONGST STAKEHOLDERS
 Innovation has been described as ‘the successful
implementation of creative ideas within an
organisation’
 Creativity, which includes invention, is only the
starting point for innovation, a necessary but not
sufficient condition for it.
 Creativity takes time, and studies suggest that
people need to have been part of a creative team
for two years to be really productive.

22. FOSTERING INNOVATION AMONGST STAKEHOLDERS
 Effective Teamwork
 Continuous Improvement
 Collective Vision
 Conscious Transparency
 Cross-cultural communication

23. EFFECTIVE TEAMWORK
 Teamwork is a joint action by two or more people,
in which each person contributes with different skills
and express his or her individual interests and
opinions to the unity and efficiency of the group in
order to achieve common goals.
 Not all teams are effective!
 CCA advocates EFFECTIVE TEAMWORK, to
achieve ACCA’s ALP Gold Status in 2010

24. CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
 Continuous improvement, in regard to
organizational quality and performance, focuses on
improving customer satisfaction through continuous
and incremental improvements to processes,
including by removing unnecessary activities and
variations.

25. COLLECTIVE VISION
 Collective visions often grow out of collaboration,
teamwork, and empowerment.
 At CCA, we are likely to be more successful in achieving
in-depth learning when management work with staff and
the community (faculty & students) to build a collective
educational vision that is clear, compelling, and
connected to teaching and learning. This collective
vision helps focus attention on what is important,
motivates staff and students, and increases the sense of
shared responsibility for student learning

26. CONSCIOUS TRANSPARENCY
 Transparency, when used in a social context,
implies openness, communication, and
accountability. It is a metaphorical extension of the
meaning a "transparent" object is one that can be
seen through. Transparent procedures include
open meetings, financial disclosure statements,
budgetary review, audits, etc.

27. CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION
 Cross-cultural communication looks at how
people from differing cultural backgrounds
communicate, in simlar and different ways among
themselves , and how they endeavour to
communicate across cultures.

28. FOSTERING CCA BRAND DEVELOPMENT AMONGST
STAKEHOLDERS
 Why is Successful Branding So Important Today?
 The Brand Is Everything
 The Brand’s Creed
 Great Strategy Begins with Great Research
 The Target Audience Holds the Keys to Your Brand’s
Success
 Developing a Brand Statement (Brand Proposition)
 A Promise Is a Promise
 Deliver the Unexpected
 Winning their Hearts and Minds

29. FOSTERING CCA BRAND DEVELOPMENT AMONGST
STAKEHOLDERS
 To successfully position your brand above your
competitor’s continuing fight for your customers, you
must develop a brand proposition that when conveyed in
marketing and advertising campaigns, will provide an
attractive, unique, and relevant message to current and
potential customers. In addition, this proposition must be
realized and consistently echoed by senior executives,
customer support, R&D teams, marketing staff, sales
staff, and strategic partners - John D Bloise

30. FOSTERING MARKETING CAPABILITIES AMONGST
STAKEHOLDER
 Market-Advantage Test
 Market Analysis
 Market Coverage
 Market Development
 Market Penetration
 Market Share
 Market Knowledge

31. CONCLUSION
 Our vision is to be a leading global education and
training provider
 We believe we can make it happen
 Like NIKE, let’s ‘Just Do It’

32. THANK YOU ALL, GOD BLESS!

33. WE WISH YOU THE BEST
 Wherever your job, career or business takes you in
the future, I do hope it is profitable.
We hope to meet with all our
current and prospective
lecturers on Saturday 8th of
August, 2009, during our
next LECTURERS’ COURSE
REVIEW MEETING.