What are a company's core competences?

Core competencies are things a company is really good at.

For example, for Coca Cola it would be things like

• Marketing 
• Advertising
• Making and selling Beverages
• Setting up a cold chain
• Distribution of goods across all geographies
• Building a retail network
• Etc.

It would not be the following that are required for it to be a global competitor in the beverages space 

• Software development
• Fiancial modeling
• Providing consulting services
• Selling electronics
• Etc.

Best,

Udayan

Hello!

I would make hte following approach:

In my mind, think of the 5 Ps of Porter

Having those elements in mind, mention them, as well as moats and walls.

Furthermore, always see the vission and mission, gives many clues.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Hi Richard,

Core competencies are anything that I do really well as a company. In particular, it would generally be things I'm especially known for, when being compared against my competition.

Defining them is totally industry/company/case specific! As you'll see in the below list, core competencies can literally be anything!

https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15792-business-core-competencies.html

https://www.thebalancesmb.com/core-competency-in-business-2948314

https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/tools-and-samples/hr-qa/Pages/corecompetencies.aspx

Basically what is a company really good at. 

What has it been doing from Day 1? What is the cornerstone of its strategy? What is the one thing / function / ability it can't do without?

E.g. Uber/Doordash - best-in-class routing, dynamic pricing; Amazon - operational efficiencies in logistics; Google - search; Disney - franchises and merchandising across formats; McDonalds - process standardisation and consistency