Abstract
INTRODUCTION
Today, more than ever, enterprises are facing the challenge of a rapidly changing business environment. Manufacturing enterprises are more than ever challenged by the pace of technological change which causes them to realign themselves with regard to their product knowledge and technological expertise. Telling examples can be found in the mobile phone industry: Nokia and BlackBerry lost their market leading positions due to their inability to adjust to new innovations. Kodak, once a leading enterprise in the camera industry, declared bankruptcy in early 2012. The replacement of film cameras by digital ones and the cannibalization of cameras by smartphones brought ruin to the enterprise.
Currently, potentially one of the most significant technological innovations in the automotive industry is the transition from the conventional power train to the electric one. For the established enterprises in the automotive sector this transition will have far-reaching consequences with regard to their technological know-how about products and processes. Renowned automobile manufacturers have already recognized the signs of the time and reacted in different ways to this technological shift. On the one hand, BMW has started to develop the necessary skills and technologies internally. On the other hand, Daimler and Toyota invested in Tesla Motors, an early pioneer in the field of electric mobility.
The foundation for the theoretical perspective of the practical problem of how to build up new core competencies in a structured way has been laid by Hamel & Prahalad in their 1990 Paper "Core Competence of the Corporation". Their approach of explaining competitive advantages of enterprises through the enterprises´ core competencies quickly became a widely accepted theory in the field of strategic management. Based on the works of Hamel & Prahalad, many authors tried to enhance the concept of core competencies. First, the scientific work on the subject dealt with the problem of defining and identifying core competencies.1 This phase was followed by effort to develop a holistic core competence management approach.2 The core competence theory was quickly adopted by practioners and executives as a tool for strategic corporate decision-making. Despite the acceptance, the concept has gained in corporate practice and regardless of enterprise environments that are changing at an ever faster pace (characterized by technological shifts and changing consumer demands), it is surprising that the topic of building-up new core competencies has received little attention in literature. This paper is aimed at addressing the lack of such a methodology. We agree with Zehnder that the development of core competencies is not “[...] the product of chance“3, but the result of proactive management: "In enterprises, competencies do not arise by themselves. They are developed purposefully through the bundling of corporate skills for a specific application."4
Numerous practical examples from the industry show that the deficit of an insufficient operationalization of the approach for building-up technological core competencies is not only a theoretical research gap but also a practical problem. Hümmer states: "The difficult operationalization remains the main source of criticism of the resource-based view (RBV) and the core competence approach ".5
On the basis of the identified practical and theoretical problems, this paper is aimed at developing a practicable methodology for building up core competencies. The focus of this paper is not to establish a new theory of core competence management. On the contrary, this paper is building upon and further developing the existing theory of core competence in a practical way. There is a need for further research at the interface between strategic core competence planning and operational implementation management.6 The paper at hand focuses on technological core competencies of manufacturing enterprises which, when faced with a disruptive technological change, need to realign themselves with regard to their product knowledge and process expertise in order to benefit from the shift and to establish new competitive advantages. In developing the methodology, special emphasis will be placed on its practical character by applying the methodology to the production of electric traction motors in electric vehicle power trains as an example.
KEYWORDS – Technology innovation, disruptive change, core competencies, electric power train, e-mobility