Misunderstanding the Capabilities-Driven Strategy

Peter F. Drucker once said that: The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.

But the question is: Could we gain a new category of customers, or enter a new market by using our existing Capabilities System, with little changes, or - ideally - with no changes at all? 

Or, in other words: Could we change our Strategic Positioning without changing our Core Capabilities?

The often-encountered misunderstanding about the Capabilities-Driven Strategy is a perspective that is expressed in statements like:

 We don't need other Core Capabilities, we just need to better use those that we currently have, to grow or expand our business.

or, in a refined version:

We only need to add some less important Supporting Capabilities to the Core Capabilities that we currently have, to grow or expand our business.

The root of such perspective is the belief that we can build a Strategy without changing significantly our existing Capabilities System, or even not at all, if possible. Furthermore, such belief assumes that we can change our Strategic Positioning by adopting only those new Strategic Choices that can re-use our existing Core Capabilities, or by adopting only those Strategic Choices that need small changes or the addition of some lesser important Supporting Capabilities.

Is a capability 'core' if it exists and 'supporting' when it needs to be acquired? Is the cost (in terms of money, time and resources) needed to build or acquire a certain capability what makes it 'core' or 'supporting'? Could Capabilities System function, even if not at optimal parameters, if a 'supporting' capability is missing, but might it not function at all if a 'core' capability is missing?

Find the answers in our post: