Assignment 23A: Your Venture’s Unfair Advantage

1) Unique character: There is no other product existing like this

• Valuable – very valuable, I could be the first person entering this market and could build up customer loyalty
• Rare – definitely rare
• Inimitable – currently not imitable but possibly in the future, competitors could easily imitate the product
• Non-substitutable – currently not substitutable but with future-products that are similar to this one the unique character of the product will be destroyed

2) Apprenticeship in a bank: Knowledge about financial aspects and how important financial stability is

• Valuable – very valuable, helpful to assess the financial stability of my business, useful to contact investors
• Rare – not rare, many people have done an apprenticeship in a bank
• Inimitable – imitable, knowledge that can be offered to a majority of people
• Non-substitutable – slightly substitutable by other apprenticeships that are quite similar to the one in a bank

3) Different versions of the product are possible (inconstancy)

• Valuable – very valuable in order to meet different customer needs
• Rare – it is not easy to find other products that are this easy to differentiate
• Inimitable – slightly imitable by competitors
• Non-substitutable – Not substitutable because it would not be useful to replace different versions

4) My awareness of the need

• Valuable – very valuable, it helps to understand the customer need
• Rare – not rare, nearly all entrepreneurs are aware of a specific need, otherwise they would not try to solve it
• Inimitable – imitable by other entrepreneurs
• Non-substitutable – should not be substitutable because no one would try to solve the need then

5) Tessa – self-employed with designing products for daily life

• Valuable – very valuable, she can give useful advice and has a lot of knowledge about textiles and customer preferences
• Rare – yes, it is hard to find an expert who is as cooperative as Tessa is
• Inimitable – not imitable, because of her specific skills and her experiences 
• Non-substitutable – not substitutable 

6) Low costs caused by producing the product

• Valuable – very valuable, creates a higher consumer surplus
• Rare – quite rare because it is hard to create a valuable product without spending a lot of money
• Inimitable – imitable, other products exist with the same advantage 
• Non-substitutable – not substitutable because not desirable. It is good to have low costs for the product

7) Large potential group of customers

• Valuable – very valuable , because of a higher profitability
• Rare – quite rare, it is hard to create a product which doesn’t already exist but that can satisfy the needs of a large group of people
• Inimitable – slightly imitable, can be hard to find a large group of customers for a specific product
• Non-substitutable – slightly substitutable

8) Easy offering of complementary products: e.g. heated hand grips

• Valuable – very valuable, additional profit
• Rare – not rare, a lot of products exists that also have complementary gadgets 
• Inimitable – imitable by competitors 
• Non-substitutable – hard to substitute the heated hand grips and find another useful complementary good but in general possible

9) Saleability

• Valuable – very valuable because the products offers a high potential
• Rare – not rare, a lot of products exists that are easy to sale to customers because of their high satisfaction of a need
• Inimitable – imitable by most entrepreneurs 
• Non-substitutable – definitely substitutable

10) Promotion and sale experiences:

• Valuable – very valuable to achieve a high demand for the product
• Rare – not rare, I could employ an expert
• Inimitable – slightly imitable, hard to find a person that could do it with the passion I do it
• Non-substitutable – substitutable by other entrepreneurs with similar experiences, but it would be still different

Top Resource:

It is hard to make a decision for one top resource because there is none that is obviously the best in all categories of the VRIN analysis. But in the end I have chosen the third resource. I think it is very important to offer a product that can be easily designed individually for each customer. This creates a high value for the customer without having high increasing costs because the production process will remain the same. With offering different versions of the product, it will be quite diverse and will provide an all-purpose applicability.