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The future of advantage is radically different from the past for a simple reason: because it’s economically better. 20th century advantage focuses firms on simply extracting resources from people, communities and society — and then protecting what they extract. 21st century advantage focuses firms on creating new resources, and allocating them better. The former is useful only to shareholders and managers — but the latter is useful to people, communities, and society. The old Microsoft was useful to shareholders, but a lot less useful to society — and that’s exactly how Google and Apple attacked it, and won.
Those that are mastering allocative and creative advantage, in contrast, are learning to create thick value: authentic economic value, that’s meaningful to humans. That’s why allocative and creative advantage are the equivalent of economic superweapons. They are letting today’s revolutionaries stun, stagger, and vaporize rivals, no matter how big, bad, or historic.
The New Paradigm of Advantage by Umair Haque.
