ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the work of Gary Hamel and C. K. Prahalad, who contend that the strategic management process should focus on the long-term identification, development, and exploitation of the 'core competencies' of the organization. It analyzes the core competence concept. Hamel and Prahalad suggest that leaders and managers in organizations have to rethink the concept of the corporation, its mission, and its approach to strategic management as a consequence of espousing the core competence perspective that they describe in their work. Competencies are capabilities represented by the collective and accumulated knowledge, learning and experience of the organization and its staff. The core competence will make a significant contribution to the customer benefits and value of the end product. The application of a core competence across diversity of businesses, and into new markets, will require the deployment and redeployment of that competence internally across the enterprise.
