Competitive Advantage Quotes

sustained high gross profit margins relative to industry peers tends to indicate durable competitive advantage. Zeroing ~ Lawrence A. Cunningham

Caring, it turns out, is a competitive advantage, and one that takes effort, not money. ~ Seth Godin

Agile processes harness change for the customer's competitive advantage. ~ Adam Vardy

Choose one thing and become a master of it. Choose a second thing and become a master of that. When you become a master of two worlds (say, engineering and business), you can bring them together in a way that will a) introduce hot ideas to each other, so they can have idea sex and make idea babies that no one has seen before and b) create a competitive advantage because you can move between worlds, speak both languages, connect the tribes, mash the elements to spark fresh creative insight until you wake up with the epiphany that changes your life. ~ Justine Musk

In an economy where the only certainty is uncertainty, the one sure source of lasting competitive advantage is knowledge. ~ Ikujiro Nonaka

The Lord calls us to love everybody. Every day it's a challenge. Within this sport, I'm called to love everybody. That means that every single German or Canadian that I want to beat, I still have to love. That means competing the way God wants me to compete. That means doing things that might not necessarily be seen as giving me a competitive advantage but instead doing what God would want me to do. ~ Elana Meyers

Accountability is not a consequence. In order for it to become your competitive advantage, you must be willing to change what you expect from yourself and others. ~ Sam Silverstein

It's through diverse opinions and perspectives that a dynamic organisation can drive innovation and create its competitive advantage. ~ Craig Dent

Genuine listening ability is one of the few true forms of competitive advantage, ~ Feargal Quinn

The ability to learn faster than your competitors may be only sustainable competitive advantage. ~ Arie De Geus

Increasingly, the winners in today's business environment are those companies that know how to leverage complexity and exploit it to create competitive advantage. ~ Yves Morieux

User habits are a competitive advantage. Products that change customer routines are less susceptible to attacks from other companies. ~ Nir Eyal

When you find errors in conventional wisdom-when everyone says A and A is not true-you gain competitive advantage. Only a few times do you have to find errors in conventional wisdom to make a living. ~ Larry Ellison

Having an achievement mindset is your competitive advantage ~ Maxine Phillips

We don't want a third party who may or may not have our best interests in mind or our crew members' best interests in mind because they may be serving a union of one of our competitors. They are trying to equalize us and take away our competitive advantage. ~ David Neeleman

Ninety percent of games lose money; 10 percent make a lot of money. And there's a consistency around the competitive advantages you create, so if you can actually learn how to do the art, the design, and the programming, you would be consistently very profitable. ~ Gabe Newell

In Germany, college tuition is free. In America, college tuition is increasingly unaffordable. In a highly competitive global economy, which country do you think will have the best educated work force and a competitive advantage? We must make tuition free in public colleges and universities and substantially reduce interest rates on student loans. ~ Bernie Sanders

Management innovation is going to be the most enduring source of competitive advantage. There will be lots of rewards for firms in the vanguard. ~ Gary Hamel

Creativity may well be the last legal unfair competitive advantage we can take to run over the competition. ~ David Trott

Exploiting a sustainable competitive advantage is great ... If you can find it. ~ Rita Gunther McGrath

And when your phone rings, pick it up. Open yourself up to the possibility a phone call offers. Discover this remarkable device called the telephone. It will give you a serious competitive advantage. ~ Dan Pallotta

I genuinely believe that any business can create a competitive advantage through giving outstanding customer care. ~ Gary Vaynerchuk

In a world where routine production is footloose ... competitive advantage lies not in one-time breakthroughs but in continual improvements. Stable technologies get away. ~ Robert Reich

Managers' responsibility is to ensure that people deliver the expected results, which are the company's strategy. The company's strategy, in turn, determines its competitive advantage. So, if a manager does a poor job of motivating employees' productivity, the enterprise is a weak competitor. ~ Anna Stevens

What business strategy is all about-what distinguishes it from all other kinds of business planning-is, in a word, competitive advantage. Without competitors there would be no need for strategy, for the sole purpose of strategic planning is to enable the company to gain, as efficiently as possible, a sustainable edge over its competitors. ~ Kenichi Ohmae

Being able to think and invest very long term and not worry about current earnings or Wall Street analysts can be a major competitive advantage in certain businesses. Acquire ~ Daniel Pecaut

The worst sort of business is one that grows rapidly, requires significant capital to engender the growth, and then earns little or no money. Think airlines. Here a durable competitive advantage has proven elusive ever since the days of the Wright Brothers. Indeed, if a farsighted capitalist had been present at Kitty Hawk, he would have done his successors a huge favor by shooting Orville down. ~ Warren Buffett

Strong personality traits can sometimes give you a huge competitive advantage over other people - they can help you achieve things others don't. However, the trick is moderating these personality traits so that they don't dominate your nature. For example, being extremely persistent - which anxious, high achievers often are - can have a huge upside. However, if you're very persistent but can't moderate it, it can be difficult to take a break in situations in which you need one. You might find it hard to step away when you're stuck on a task and not getting anywhere or when you're involved in an argument that's going nowhere and only getting more heated. The more extreme a trait is, the more likely it is to be a double-edged sword - sometimes useful and sometimes not. ~ Alice Boyes

Giving a damn is seriously underrated and caring is a competitive advantage. ~ Bernadette Jiwa

unless a company has some kind of economic moat, predicting how much shareholder value it will create in the future is pretty much a crapshoot, regardless of what the historical track record looks like. Looking at the numbers is a start, but it's only a start. Thinking carefully about the strength of the company's competitive advantage, and how it will (or won't) be able to keep the competition at bay, is a critical next step. ~ Pat Dorsey

But even if, as Johnson argues, power and dominance serve no meaningful purpose, they always incur costs. In biology, the cost can be painfully visible. During courtship, the argus cock pheasant spreads his large secondary wing feathers, which are decorated with beautiful eye spots; the bigger they are, the more they stimulate the female. And the longer the feathers, the more progeny the cock will produce. So the more beautiful cocks produce more descendants. That should be a competitive advantage. But the evolution of the argus pheasant has run itself into a blind alley because the most gorgeous cock has feathers so huge and unwieldy that they may cause him to be eaten by a predator, because he can't fly away fast enough. Oskar Heinroth, the teacher of Konrad Lorenz, commented: 'Next to the wings of the argus pheasant, the hectic life of western civilized man is the most stupid product of intra-specific selection! ~ Margaret Heffernan

I actually don't invest in anything that is social, mobile, deals or ad networks simply because those are areas where there are so many players and so many other smart people in the space, I feel like I don't have a competitive advantage. So I tend to go after things that are e-commerce, like healthcare. ~ Aaron Patzer

The greatest competitive advantage is to allow your employees to be part of something. Something bigger than what you're doing. ~ Blake Mycoskie

You won't find a CEO who doesn't talk about a 'powerful culture' as a source of competitive advantage. At the same time, you'd be hard-pressed to find a CEO who has much of a clue about the strength of that culture. ~ Marcus Buckingham

The guy with the competitive advantage is the one with the best technology. ~ Walter Wriston

Smiling can be a competitive advantage. It makes everyone feel better and every situation brighter. ~ Richard Branson

Some white people are so accustomed to operating at a competitive advantage that when the playing field is level, they feel handicapped. ~ Nathan McCall

Describing one competitive advantage of IBM's Deep Blue chess computer. It has no fear. ~ Yasser Seirawan

I think every country has to recognize its competitive advantage and liberate its strengths to be a partner in global trade, and that's the only way you can survive and succeed. ~ N. R. Narayana Murthy

[In picking stocks] You really have to know a lot about business. You have to know a lot about competitive advantage. You have to know a lot about the maintainability of competitive advantage. You have to have a mind that quantifies things in terms of value. And you have to be able to compare those values with other values available in the stock market. ~ Charlie Munger

Effective leadership is the only competitive advantage that will endure. That's because leadership has two sides- what a person is character and what a person does- competence. ~ Stephen Covey

becomes a competitive advantage when it ~ John Kay

I am wired like a CEO and care a great deal about the bottom line, but I care about my customers even more than that. That's always been my competitive advantage. ~ Gary Vaynerchuk

clean, efficient, rational, and predictable government is a competitive advantage.26 ~ Graham Allison

Who most benefits from keeping marijuana illegal? The greatest beneficiaries are the major criminal organizations in Mexico and elsewhere that earn billions of dollars annually from this illicit trade - and who would rapidly lose their competitive advantage if marijuana were a legal commodity. ~ George Soros

The main benefit of innovation for your organization is not competitive advantage. It is survival. ~ Paul Sloane

If Mexican farm labor is so much cheaper, maybe we should be growing our fruits and vegetables in Mexico. There's absolutely no reason to import Mexicans to do something they could do at home and then sell to us. I believe this is what economists call "competitive advantage". ~ Ann Coulter

The most powerful natural species are those that adapt to environmental change without losing their fundamental identity which gives them their competitive advantage. ~ Charles Darwin

The government's assertion that it must be unhindered in protecting our security can camouflage the desire to increase Executive power, while the press's cry of the public's right to know can mask a quest for competitive advantage or a hidden animus. Neither the need to protect our security nor the public's right to know is a blank check. ~ Richard Stengel

Gross profit margin demonstrates competitive advantage: it is the purest expression of customer valuation of a product, clearly implying the premium buyers assign to a seller for having fashioned raw materials into a finished item and branding it. ~ Lawrence A. Cunningham

As long as you can bootstrap, not at the sacrifice of competitive advantage, bootstrapping is a really powerful thing because it allows you to be totally devoted to your vision. ~ Nick Woodman

We tend to think of "geography" in grandiose terms but sometimes forget that our own micro-geography can lend us competitive advantage. Taking in the "lay of the land" has always been an activity of the finest generals, and developing a practiced eye for the playing field is essential for successful strategic thought. What are the factors that make for a geographic advantage in your own interactions? Do you consciously structure situations to give yourself the geographic advantage? ~ Anonymous

Shutterstock's ability to cultivate a healthy and expanding marketplace for both customers and contributors remains a key competitive advantage and a crucial component of our sustained growth. ~ Jon Oringer

There are three important principles to Graham's approach. [The first is to look at stocks as fractional shares of a business, which] gives you an entirely different view than most people who are in the market. [The second principle is the margin-of-safety concept, which] gives you the competitive advantage. [The third is having a true investor's attitude toward the stock market, which] if you have that attitude, you start out ahead of 99 percent of all the people who are operating in the stock market - it's an enormous advantage. ~ Warren Buffett

Optimism is a competitive advantage. ~ Jon Gordon

All things being equal, the primary competitive advantage of your business will be your ability to grow Leaders Without Titles faster than your industry peers. ~ Robin Sharma

NASA needs to focus on the things that are really important and that we do not know how to do. The agency is a pioneering force, and that is where its competitive advantage lies. ~ Buzz Aldrin

Face reality as it is, not as it was or as you wish it to be. ~ Jack Welch

Mind Games: constantly bashing a brick wall with your head because you are giving all you've got and hardly receiving anything back (...) a series of deliberate actions or responses planned for psychological effects on you, typically for amusement or competitive advantage. ~ Efrat Cybulkiewicz

A society's competitive advantage will come not from how well its schools teach the multiplication and periodic tables, but from how well they stimulate imagination and creativity. ~ Walter Isaacson

Creativity is the product of your imagination. ~ Martin Uzochukwu Ugwu

In an organization of any significant size, the executives cannot create the future single-handedly. They must develop the enterprise in a constellation of teams within the overall team if they hope to bring the special talents and resources to bear on the challenge of creating superior customer value and sustaining a competitive advantage in the eyes of its customers. ~ Karl Albrecht

Not finance. Not strategy. Not technology. It is teamwork that remains the ultimate competitive advantage, both because it is so powerful and so rare. ~ Patrick Lencioni

Shifting customer needs are common in today's marketplace. Businesses must be adaptive and responsive to change while delivering an exceptional customer experience to be competitive. Traditional development and delivery frameworks such as waterfall are often ineffective. In contrast, Scrum is a value-driven agile approach which incorporates adjustments based on regular and repeated customer and stakeholder feedback. And Scrum's built-in rapid response to change leads to substantial benefits such as fast time-to-market, higher satisfaction, and continuous improvement - which supports innovation and drives competitive advantage. ~ Scott M. Graffius

Where has this book been? The Culture Engine demystifies the what and how of driving your company's culture to produce transformational business outcomes. Chris Edmonds operationalizes culture while offering practical tools necessary to align your people and gain profound competitive advantage. ~ Joseph Michelli

Every consultant needs to understand that their competitive advantage and brand equity doesn't just come from their training and experience. It is the historical context of where they were born and raised, and major influences in their lives that makes each consultant unique. ~ Cindy Ann Peterson

Develop your leaders into a competitive advantage. Reconnect your leader-power to success. ~ Gene Morton

Don't be color blind, be color brave. Embrace diversity as a competitive advantage. ~ Mellody Hobson

What made Einstein special was his impertinence, his nonconformity, and his distaste for dogma. Einstein's genius reminds us that a society's competitive advantage comes not from teaching the multiplication or periodic tables but from nurturing rebels. Grinds have their place, but unruly geeks change the world. (Walter Issacson, Wired) ~ Alexandra Robbins

Theres no competitive advantage in being just like everyone else. ~ Daniel Burrus

An enterprise that is constantly exploring new horizons is likely to have a competitive advantage in attracting and retaining talent. ~ Gary Hamel

The natural strategic orientation of many companies is toward retaining existing customers and seeking further segmentation opportunities. This is especially true in the face of competitive pressure. Although this might be a good way to gain a focused competitive advantage and increase share of the existing market space, it is not likely to produce a blue ocean that expands the market and creates new demand. ~ W.Chan Kim

We were the first multibrand platform for the customization of designer clothing. And it's great to be a first mover if you manage to pull it off. You can have a great competitive advantage. But if you're quite early, you're learning a lot: both learning as a company, and the customer is still learning. ~ Aslaug Magnusdottir

Organizational health is the single greatest competitive advantage in any business. ~ Patrick Lencioni

Your competitive advantage is formed by the interplay of three different, ever-changing forces: your assets, your aspirations/values, and the market realities, i.e., the supply and demand for what you offer the marketplace relative to the competition. The ~ Reid Hoffman

Design is a form of competitive advantage. People tend to think of design as good art, good visual language, which it absolutely has to be. But it's also about the ability to do systems thinking. ~ James P Hackett

Empowering people turns Wal-Mart's culture into a competitive advantage. ~ Michael Bergdahl

America still has the right stuff to thrive. We still have the most creative, diverse, innovative culture and open society - in a world where the ability to imagine and generate new ideas with speed and to implement them through global collaboration is the most important competitive advantage. ~ Thomas Friedman

The company that consistently makes and implements decisions rapidly gains a tremendous, often decisive, competitive advantage. ~ Steve Blank

Our investments continue to be few in number and simple in concept: The truly big investment idea can usually be explained in a short paragraph. We like a business with enduring competitive advantages that is run by able and owner-oriented people. When these attributes exist, and when we can make purchases at sensible prices, it is hard to go wrong (a challenge we periodically manage to overcome). ~ Warren Buffett

Higher education isn't just a personal investment. It's a public good that pays off in a more competitive workforce and better-informed and engaged citizens. Every year, we spend nearly $100 billion on corporate welfare, and more than $500 billion on defense spending. Surely ensuring the next generation can compete in the global economy is at least as important as subsidies for big business and military adventures around the globe. In fact, I think we can and must go further - not just making public higher education tuition-free, but reinventing education in America as we know it. ~ Robert Reich

There is nothing wrong in using people. The success never uses people except to their advantage. ~ Mark Caine

I've always wanted to work with Paul Newman. I had a couple opportunities in the past, and I didn't take advantage of it, so it was really fun to be working with him. ~ Ed Harris

It was a bit of a surprise for us that we had problems in Hungary. But in reality, I think the car could have been pretty competitive with a trouble-free race. ~ Fernando Alonso

You said every day we make a million little choices, and we should try to make the right ones as much as we can. And you said rarely in life do the big choices present themselves, so when they do, we have to take advantage of the opportunity. We have to do the right thing. ~ Louisa Luna

The competitive landscape of hedge funds is rapidly changing, as hundreds of funds are opened and closed every year. For example, Pensions & Investments reported that 784 new funds were started in 2009, while 1,023 existing funds were closed. Amazingly, the median life of a hedge fund is only 31 months. Fewer than 15 percent of hedge funds last longer than six years, and 60 percent of them disappear in less than three years.[3] ~ Gordon Murray

The ladies perhaps had the advantage in the sheer size of ~ Mary Balogh

Once you've surrendered yourself to another, you've been conquered. Surrender = vulnerability. Vulnerability means someone else has the advantage over you. Still interested? ~ Donna Lynn Hope

If you flipped a switch in the back of your brain, you could watch a second go by like the frames of a movie. Once you figured out what would be happening ten frames later, you could take whatever steps you needed to turn the situation to your advantage. All at a subconscious level. In battle, you couldn't count on anyone who didn't understand how to break down time. ~ Hiroshi Sakurazaka

We believed we could prepare our kids for a more competitive world. And today, our younger students have earned the highest math and reading scores on record. Our high school graduation rate has hit an all-time high. And more Americans finish college than ever before. ~ Barack Obama

When I was a kid I did marshal arts, and then I did all-star crazy competitive cheer and dance, and then I swam so I was very muscular. You know, healthy, but not quite as thin as I am. ~ Ashley Greene

We easily enough confess in others an advantage of courage, strength, experience, activity, and beauty; but an advantage in judgment we yield to none. ~ Michel De Montaigne

It's not just the physical aspect of boxing, it's the whole fighter mentality that has been ingrained in me through the years as a competitive athlete. One of the hardest things you'll ever do is to box - to get into the ring and to face off with somebody whose whole goal is to knock you out, to hurt you, and to be able to fight back. ~ Cara Castronuova

Books are standing counselors and preachers, always at hand, and always disinterested; having this advantage over oral instructors that they are ready to repeat their lessons as often as we please. ~ Robert Chambers

When you are writing a memoir, you have the advantage of knowing how it all ends. It's just taking your life apart and putting it together again. ~ Koren Zailckas

[There is an] immense advantage to be gained by ample space and appropriate surroundings in aiding the formation of a just idea of the beauty and interest of each specimen... Nothing detracts so much from the enjoyment ... from a visit to a museum as the overcrowding of the specimens exhibited. ~ William Henry Flower

Wheat did it by manipulating Homo sapiens to its advantage. This ape had been living a fairly comfortable life hunting and gathering until about 10,000 years ago, but then began to invest more and more effort in cultivating wheat. Within a couple of millennia, humans in many parts of the world were doing little from dawn to dusk other than taking care of wheat plants. It wasn't easy. Wheat demanded a lot of them. ~ Yuval Noah Harari

Is it reasonable that even the arts should take advantage of and profit by our natural stupidity and feebleness of mind? ~ Michel De Montaigne

The intelligence suffers today automatically in consequence of the attack on all authority, advantage, or privilege. These things are not done away with, it is needless to say, but numerous scapegoats are made of the less politically powerful, to satisfy the egalitarian rage awakened. ~ Wyndham Lewis

The man who would forge to the front in this competitive age must be a man of prompt and determined decision. ~ Orison Swett Marden