Competitiveness by design and inimitability through service: understanding the dynamics of firm-based competition in the West Midlands jewellery and lock industries

Manufacturing firms located in high-cost production locations have developed a series of complex inimitability strategies in response to intensive competition from low-cost producers. This paper draws upon the resource-based view of the firm to explore inimitability, as a strategy firms deploy in response to imitation. The analysis is based upon in-depth interviews with lock, jewellery and whistle manufacturers located in the West Midlands, UK. Many of these firms have been transformed into niche manufacturers whose competitiveness is based around a process of customisation through a co-production relationship with customers, the delivery of service experiences and a continual process of design-intensive innovation.