Competitive advantage through productivity

Savolainen, T. I, (1999). Cycles of continuous improvement - realizing competitive advantages through quality. International Journal of Operations Production Management, 19(11), 1203-1222. 

The enhancement of chemical reactivity safety knowledge also provides broader benefits. Improved process knowledge and understanding can produce a competitive advantage—for example, through improved yields, better quality, and increased productivity (CCPS 1989). 

Of course, true competitive advantage is usually the result of making coordinated innovations on multiple fronts. Through the combination of its iPod and iPhone products with its iTunes business model, Apple created about 70 billion in shareholder value in just three years. Amazon s business model innovation of cutting out the brick-and-mortar store is coupled with service innovations such as 1-Click, Recently Viewed Items, Customer Reviews, and Books You Might Also Like. This is a taste of how these companies have innovated across the board. 

Viewed through this lens, innovative activity focused on opportunities for new markets in sustainably designed products presents the chemical industry, and the industries it supplies, with potentially enormous entrepreneurial opportunities. As feedstock providers, chemical companies have the opportunity to shape new competitive space in the near future. They can differentiate their products and strategies in ways that will gain future competitive advantage over those who fail to react. In... 

Early on, the most obvious benefit of sustainability - at least in terms of business success - was its emphasis on cost-reduction through better management of resources. In recent years, though, another benefit has arisen products that help customers achieve their own goals for sustainability are more likely to succeed. In other words, sustainability efforts can create a competitive advantage. 

The zeolites and modified clays (PIL-clays) are suitable products over which metallic phases can be dispersed to obtain a bifunctional catalysts providing the acid and basic centres on the mentioned structures. In addition, clays and zeolites have the advantage as supports that they are chemically and physically robust and inexpensive [1]. In our study we chose the hydrogenation of acetone, in which acetone is competitively transformed through bifunctional catalysts into 2-propanol (IPA) and methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK). 

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