VRIO шеңбері: Бизнес талдау құралы

Business analysis framework

VRIO is a business analysis framework that forms part of a firm's larger strategic scheme, proposed by Jay Barney in 1991. The basic strategic process of any firm begins with a vision statement, and continues on through objectives, internal & external analysis, strategic choices (both business level and corporate level), and strategic implementation. VRIO falls into the internal analysis step of these procedures, but is used as a framework in evaluating just about all resources and capabilities of a firm, regardless of what phase of the strategic model it falls under. VRIO is an initialism for the four question framework asked about a resource or capability to determine its competitive potential: the question of Value, the question of Rarity, the question of Imitability (Ease/Difficulty to Imitate), and the question of Organization (ability to exploit the resource or capability). The question of value: "Is the firm able to exploit an opportunity or neutralize an external threat with the resource/capability?" The question of rarity: "Is control of the resource/capability in the hands of a relative few?" The question of imitability: "Is it difficult to imitate, and will there be significant cost disadvantage to a firm trying to obtain, develop, or duplicate the resource/capability?" The question of organization: "Is the firm organized, ready, and able to exploit the resource/capability?" "Is the firm organized to capture value?"

The primary question of “imitability” asked in the VRIO framework in internal analysis is that “ Do firms without a resource or capability face a cost disadvantage in obtaining or developing it compared to firms that already possess it?” Firms with valuable and rare resources, which are hard to imitate by other firms, can gain the first mover advantages in the market and can hence gain competitive advantage. A firm can either exploit an external opportunity or neutralize an external threat by using its rare and valuable resources. In this case, the firm can gain competitive advantage. When the firm's competitors discover this competitive advantage, they may respond in two ways. First, they can choose to ignore the profit gaining by the competitive advantage and continue to operate in their old ways. Second, they can choose to analyze and duplicate the competitive strategy of its rival. If there is no cost or little cost in obtaining this rare and valuable resource, the fellow firms can imitate the competitive advantage in order to gain competitive parity (firms that create the same economic value as their rivals experience competitive parity). However, sometimes it is hard for other firms to get access to the resources and imitate the innovative company's strategy. As a result, the innovative companies that implement its strategies based on costly to imitate and valuable resources can gain long term competitive advantage, which ensures a company's sustained success (Hill & Jones, 1998). Hence, to sustain the competitive advantage, it is not sufficient for a firm's resources and capabilities to be valuable and rare – they should also be mostly inimitable.

In most cases, imitation appears in two ways, direct duplication or substitution. After observing other firms’ competitive advantage, a firm can directly imitate the resource possessed by the innovative firm. If the cost to imitate is high, the competitive advantage will be sustained. If not, the competitive advantage will be temporary. Otherwise, an imitating firm can attempt to use a substitute in order to gain similar competitive advantage of the innovative firm.