Core Competencies
The primary skills, abilities, and knowledge used to excel at a particular endeavor. Businesses tend to focus on their core competencies in an effort to take advantage of “what they are good at.” Often, core competencies may go unrecognized within an organization that focuses too much on their markets, products, and services and not their […]
Coopetition
The natural balance of healthy ecosystems in which growth is based on innovations brought about by competition and markets are made viable and stable by cooperation. Both are necessary for a healthy, growing market, industry, or economy.
Cooperation
The opposite of competition, cooperation is two entities working together towards a common goal. In business, there are many ways in which organizations cooperate in order to compete at more valuable and sophisticated levels. For example, many technology companies cooperate in setting and producing to standards in order to create a more viable market more […]
Consumer
An individual or household that purchases and uses products and services. In sustainable management there is a trend to rethink the notion of a consumer who “uses things up” and, instead, strive to serve customers with services that meet their needs without depleting as many resources. In marketing, the trend is to speak of “customers” […]
Competitiveness
The ability of a company to attract customers over other solution providers.
Competitive Advantage
The ability one organization has to outperform others in producing products and services of higher quality, lower price, or of greater value for customers. To be a truly effective the advantage must be: • Difficult to mimic • Unique • Sustainable • Superior to the competition • Applicable to multiple situations
Competition
Hypercomptetition Cooperation Coopetition
Collapse
In evolutionary biologist Jared M. Diamond’s 2004 book, Collapse, he suggests that human societies collapse far more often than they succeed and that this failure is usually due to an inappropriate cultural response to environmental pressures (anthropogenic and otherwise) and poor relations with, or a lack of, neighboring societies.
Closed-loop Supply Chain
Ideally, a zero-waste supply chain that completely reuses, recycles, or composts all materials. However, the term can also be used to refer to corporate take-back programs, where companies that produce a good are also responsible for its disposal.
Climate Neutral
The process of offsetting carbon-producing activities with those that either reduce or capture carbon, thus credibly neutralizing the net amount of carbon released in the atmosphere from a particular activity.
