siliconindia | | February 20146opinionin myBuilding SustainableCompetitive Advantage Cover-All (NYSE MKT: COVR) is an enterprise software company focusing exclusively on providing configurable software solutions to Property & Casualty Insurance companies in the United States and Puerto Rico. The company has a market cap of $39.74 million By Manish Shah, President & CEO, Cover-All manish ShahCompetitive advantage is often thought to be an innovative product, visionary founder, loyal customer base, network effect or secret formula. Indeed, they are all competitive advantages, but are they truly sustainable? All these things could be unique at one point in time, but can they be replicated or improvised by others? In order to get answers to those questions it is necessary to examine history. There are many examples in history ranging from political superiority to business monopoly attained through uniqueness which were eventually duplicated and even commoditized - completely eliminating such competitive advantages. Henry Ford, who laid the foundations for modern-day mass production techniques, based it on the inter-changeability of components and the use of the moving assembly line. It helped Ford become a market leader but over time lost its competitive advantages as innovative techniques got duplicated and improvised by GM. Ford is still a significant company and a key player in the automotive industry, but it could not sustain the competitive advantage that it built through the genius of Henry Ford. A recent example that we all are familiar with is Blackberry, a device without which most of us found it impossible to get through siliconindia | | February 20146
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