Emc Corporation Analysis How Would You Describe

EMC Corporation Analysis

How would you describe the core competency of EMC Corp? What is the significance of understanding core competencies? Do core competencies provide competitive advantages or value to organizations?

The core competency of EMC Corporation is the research and development, selling, implementing and supporting of their virtualization technologies incouding IT infrastructure systems and platforms. EMC's depth of expertise in virtualization and infrastructure technologies has made the company one of the leading providers of cloud computing platforms, one of the fastest-growing segments of the enterprise computing industry today (Horsburgh, 2003). EMC has structured their business into two major categories incouding EMC information infrastructure and VMWare virtual infrastructure, which provides the company the ability to better serve its global base of customers (McCarthy, Capuanuo, Picotte, 2002). The information infrastructure business is comprised of three different segments including information storage, information intelligence group and the RSA information security group. The VMWare virtual infrastructure group is a stand-alone business unit as it is focused on the rapidly changing cloud computing market (EMC Investor Relations, 2012). EMC reports that their information infrastructure business generates on average 81% of total revenues and the VMWare virtual infrastructure business, 19% (EMC Investor Relations, 2012).

The significance of understanding core competencies is that when they are taken together, the complete competitive advantage of a business can better to seen from the vantage point of the industry they compete in. Analyzing core competencies of EMC for example shows how successful the company is in quickly translating research and development (R&D) into virtualization systems and platforms that enable greater performance of cloud computing and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications (EMC Investor Relations, 2012). These two areas are revolutionizing the economics of enterprise software, and EMC is ideally positioned to benefit from this shift in IT spending.

Analyzing a company's core competencies can also provide insights into their core competencies relative to competitors as well. Analysis of core competencies can provide a very accurate analysis of the core culture of a company, providing insights into hwo they react to threats and attempt top transform weakness into strengths (Tucker, 2001). The central areas of the EMC business model that contribute most to their core competency include their exceptionally rapid processes in place to translate R&D spending and investment into completed products, a business model oriented towards enriching resellers while also quantifying the proven performance gains as a result of using their products, and strong financial management of their revenue streams and costs (EMC Investor Relations, 2012).

These components that comprise the core competency of EMC also directly impact the products and services delivered, as EMC has been able to deliver two to three product generations ahead of its competitors on key virtualization technologies (EMC Investor Relations, 2012). This has made the internal culture of the company very fast-paced even for a high technology company, and also greatly increased the efficiency of the knowledge acquisition processes in the company. EMC deliberately chose an organizational structure for its support of highly collaborative processes that span hardware and software development teams. EMC is also relies on a series of internal reviews that bring together hardware, software and systems teams to the common objective of creating a unified, highly reliable system component or entire platform that will best meet the requirements of their enterprise customers (EMC Investor Relations, 2012). The knowledge acquisition process within EMC is based on creating cross-functional teams that can bring in specific hardware, software and systems engineering expertise on an as-needed basis to further assist with the development of new products (EMC Investor Relations, 2012). The greatest innovations EMC has designed and launched all come from their discussions with customers about future IT infrastructure needs, which are increasingly reflecting a cloud-based focus (Horsburgh, 2003). The ability of companies to create competitive advantage as part of their core competency is critical to long-term profitable growth and financially strong performance over the long-term (Atuahene-Gima, Wei, 2011).

What are some characteristics of a relationship management structure for dealing with IT's internal business partners? You might want to define the organization, its function, and its value to the enterprise.

The relationship management structure within EMC is predicated on making knowledge the competitive asset most valuable over time, far surpassing the value of hardware or even systems. The focus on making knowledge the most valuable asset is predicated on how the company uses its many customer relationships to drive innovation into the company, often relying on customer service interactions as the catalyst of these new developments (Judge, 2001). EMC has a continual stream of new developments in process, and they use an internal stage gate process to evaluate each idea or concept from a viability standpoint first (EMC Investor Relations, 2012). Once a given concept or idea has been approved, it progresses to a prototype phase where design engineers from the software and services teams work together to define the market and functional requirements documents, often called the FRD and MRD documents. These documents are the foundation of future development efforts, and guide the development cycles toward creating usable prototypes that are eventually tested with key customers. The FRD and MRD are also the foundational elements of the process that drive the formation of cross-functional teams internally when a given product or system has been given approval for launch (EMC Investor Relations, 2012).