1. What are the vision, mission, and values of Better World Books? Critically evaluate them. Are they helpful to the company’s leaders in formulating strategic intent? Why or why not?
According to our text, a vision is a statement about what an organization ultimately wants to accomplish, it captures the companies aspiration. Where as a firm’s mission is a description of what it actually does, what its business is, and why it does it; it can be customer orientated or product orientated. Lastly the values of a firm state the ethical standards and norms that govern the behavior of individuals within the organization.
As the case mentions, “Better World Books collects and sells books online to fund literacy initiatives On that note, I believe the threat of entry and threat of substitutes plays the biggest role. Used books, well paper books in general, are going out of style and e-books are taking over.
4. Perform a VRIO analysis. What are BWB’s resources and capabilities? What core competencies do they have to help them compete in the used book industry?
The VRIO framework in accordance to our textbook is a theoretical framework that explains and predicts firm-level competitive advantage. A firm can gain competitive advantage if it has resources that are valuable (V), rare (R), costly to imitate (I), and it must also organize (O) to capture the value of the resources. A firm can only manage to gain and sustain a competitive advantage when it has resources and capabilities that satisfy these VRIO criteria.
BWB’s resources and capabilities stretch to their partnerships with colleges and universities, libraries for extended inventory, and with other firms like Alibri. They have the capability to reuse and recycle books, and reduce waste in the environment. They also have the capability to offer 350 jobs to people, 200 full time with benefits. They’re core competencies that help them compete in the used book industry are: Partnerships Personal connections with consumers Sustainability and care for the
