Chapter 6

Why Performance Differs

The Resource-Based View of the Firm

Introduction

The industry analysis we have just done gives us some powerful insights into what makes one industry so different from another in terms of competitive dynamics and overall profitability, but it doesn’t do so well in explaining what interests us, as strategists, most. In all industries, no matter how attractive or dismal, there are firms that do much better than their peers and those (usually more) who lag. To illustrate, Figure 6.1 shows the performance of the major firms in the pharmaceutical industry in 2007, which was developed as part of Fortune magazine’s annual Fortune 500.1 Return on sales (ROS) is the simple gross profit measure. It is clear that there ...

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