Electronics Art’s (EA) competitive advantage from the perspective of the industrial organization view (I/O) is their choice of industry is very attractive. Todays world consist of many people who spend several hours playing video games. EA is from this aspect is stacking up ok against their competitors but they are also failing in their position. EA’s sales are down from previous years and they also missed the initial social gaming trend of which they are now trying hard to develop a digital platform for many of their popular games. The next perspective is resource-based view (RBV). EA’s resource based view in the past was great until the digital gaming came on board. EA was used to the technology at that time when they were popular for their games such as Madden NFL and Battlefield. It seems they’ve lost their innovative “touch” now that most games are becoming digital and they were not in position to enter into that digital platform and social gaming.
EA was known for their resources because they had the human, physical, intangible, structural/cultural, and financial assets to develop produce and deliver to their customers. They seemed to have all the resources needed when they had their competitive advantage but Electronics Arts did not prepare themselves for the changes in the behavior of consumers and retailers or trends which is now causing them to loose their competitive advantage. What they were producing had value but was not rare enough and could be exploited by other companies who were willing to take them on. From the perspective of guerilla view EA’s competitive advantage was definitely temporary. They lacked the ability to change and radically surprise competitors with strategic actions and as a company their focus of analysis both external and internal was failing. EA was not able to continue their before track record of disrupting current situations that would aide in helping them to maintain their competitive advantage.
References: Coulter, M. (2013). Strategic management in action. (6th ed.). Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Education, Inc.