Competitive factors and their relative importance in the US electronics and computer industries

The process of identifying and ranking the competitive factors is critical to management for formulating manufacturing strategy because it prioritizes criteria by which manufacturing performance will eventually be evaluated. An empirical study of 382 US computer and electronics firms shows that higher product quality and lower production cost are the most important competitive factors. However, the correlations of these two competitive factors and sales growth and profitability performance measures are not statistically significant. The results suggest that achieving high quality or low cost alone is not enough to improve or sustain a firm’s competitive position and there is a need to explore the emerging role of innovation and advanced manufacturing technology for achieving sustainable competitive advantage.