Core Competency and the Age of Unbounded Competition in Tech Sector

They taught us in economics that companies have to specialize and build core competencies.  They need to do things really well, and be the best possible in the domains. But today, while that philosophy remains, it has been well degraded especially in the technology space.

For technology companies, everyone is doing everything, even at top-level. Alphabet, Google parent company, is a car company, a search company, a medical company, an advertising juggernaut, etc. Amazon is an e-commerce firm, a publisher, a movie producer, a drone maker, etc.  Meta, the parent of Facebook, has upped the scale with an advanced chip: “Tech giant Meta recently announced the rollout of the company’s in-house Artificial Intelligence (AI) chip, designed to boost power and speed up training for its unique workloads.”

Sure, I am not saying that Google could start making cement or running waste disposal, my point is this: in tech, once you build the foundational stack, every other thing on top of it becomes easier. In other words, the first core stack is the real issue, and once that is settled, the gloves are off, and you can battle in anything possible in tech. This also explains the nature of emerging competition; it is both frontal and flank-based, meaning that your competitor may not even be part of your industry association.

They taught us in economics that companies have to specialize and build core competencies.  They need to do things really well, and be the best possible in the domains. But today, while that philosophy remains, it has been well degraded especially in the technology space.

For… pic.twitter.com/q4Nzg9LSCS

— Ndubuisi Ekekwe (@ndekekwe) April 11, 2024

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