Competitive advantage is a term that is related towards any business in gaining an edge over other rivals or competitors. Sustainable competitive advantage is thus known as an essential term that deals with the competition with the rivals or competitors in order to have an edge. Sustainable competitive advantage is a result or an outcome from a theory proposed by Michael Porter. According to him, companies or firms should try to produce products at a very high quality in order to have an edge over others.
Most of the companies do try to reach and to gain the sustainable competitive advantages by creating something unique and different in order to have long-term benefits. Some features of sustainable competitive advantage are:
i. It should be unique
ii. It should be difficult to replace
iii. Should be superior to the competition
iv. Should be sustainable
v. It should be applicable to various situations
In order to gain benefits and to be at the top of the world, companies try to adopt these features in order to be different and special. In order to be at the top of the companies and to gain competitive edge over others, companies should try to generate something different that is not being generated at other companies. By this, competitive edge can be easily gained and the companies can enjoy potential profits too.
References
Michael E. Porter (1998), "Competitive advantage: creating and sustaining superior performance : with a new introduction", Simon and Schuster, pg 557