In Michael Porter’s highly regarded strategy model, companies gain
competitive advantage by lowering costs or differentiating products. But today the traditional points of competitive differentiation had being squeezed on all sides. Third part contribution and the reasonable labor costs are available in almost any business, big or small. Other that, unassailable sources of advantage, such as access to capital or reasonable raw materials, are disappearing as markets go global. Companies that compete in advantages of environment are becoming ever more and more hard to establish and maintain.
This renovation of landscape requires refined business strategy. The capacity for innovation bringing imagination to bear to solve problems and respond to human needs. It all lies at the heart of success and Companies must find new and better ways to break out of the pack. Those that don’t will struggle to keep up in the marketplace.
Environmental strategy offers just this sort of opportunity. As a relatively new variable in the competitive mix and a market-reshaping issue, the environment a presents a lens through which to examine a facility, company, or industry and a way to bring fresh ill. to hear. Careful use of the environmental perspective can help to reduce costs and risks. But it also can drive upside gains, increasing revenues and the value of hard-to-measure but important intangibles such as reputation. Finding new market spaces, satisfying customer’s needs in new ways, and just plain doing the right thing—which many important stakeholders appreciate and reward all have the potential to add real value.
The business world is waking up to an inevitable and unavoidable truth: The economy and the environment are deeply intertwined. All goods depend on the bounty of Nature and the services it vised. Without careful stewardship, natural resource constraints will encroach on a growing number of companies and industries. Concern about these trends is driving laws, rules, and expectations that will further restrain business. The environment thus ranks as a macro issue right up there with globalization, the Internet, and the other mega forces that keep CEOs up at night. In this new, more complicated and interconnected world, environmental strategy emerges as a critical point of competitive differentiation.
Strategy no longer rests in the hands of narrowly focused planning teams. Today, every company’s financial future depends on executives who possess the ability for integrated thinking. The companies “in the barrel” of the Green Wave adeptly incorporate the environment into their core strategy. They work with a dynamic and holistic vision of how a company operates and engage the full range of stakeholders who can shape the company’s future. They create enduring Eco- Advantage by thinking differently, adopting tools to understand their companies’ challenges and opportunities, and embedding attention to stewardship in their corporate values. Companies will face many hurdles and risks of failure on the way to Eco-Advantage. But those who persist and learn from experience find ways to innovate, create value, and build competitive advantage.