Personal Competitive Advantage

Competitive advantage is an important concept that I need to understand becuase it will have an effect when I am getting ready to join the real world after I get my degree. I need to start by looking at the 8 principels of competitive advantage. The first is to create a new product or service. I need to keep learning and building my education so I can have a wealth of knowledge when I graduate. The second is to enhance products or services. This relates to me because I may have certain basic skills in a subject, but I need to enhance these and always be improving them. The third is to diffferentiate products or services. In order to get a good job, I am going to have to be different in some way. A good way to differentiate yourself is to get good grades and show on your resume that you were on the deans list for multiple semesters.

The next two steps deal with locking in customers, buyers, and suppliers. This can relate to my employer who is interviewing many graduates like myself. I have to use competitive advantage to show that I am better than the other people applying by building a resume that includes an intership that is similar to the job, a license that would benefit me in this certain type of work, or some connections that an employer will find appealing. With all these added benefits that you possess it raises barriers to market entry because now employers are going to be looking for similar resumes when hiring for a new position.

A good thing to always do is establish connections. It can be from someone in my family, a family friend, someone in my class, or anyone that can benefit me when it comes time to get a job. The last step is to reduce costs. The reflections guide explains reducing costs as being able to give reasons to your employer how you can help reduce their businesses costs if they hire you. I will be able to use my knowledge from this class and my other business classes to do this.