Low cost strategies to build dynamic capabilities: The creative approach of a French public transport operator

Dynamic capabilities have been discussed as a way to achieve competitive advantage. However, research on the building of dynamic capabilities is still scarce. This article tackles the issue of potential federative guidance to manage this building and illustrates it through the low cost approach adopted by a public transport operator. Resulting of an oriented creativity method combined with the use of two divergent strategies of low cost product development, the company was able to make several improvements that contributed to build dynamic capabilities at both firm and industrial ecosystem levels: (1) reviewed its managerial system, making transversal projects that were previously hard to be launched; (2) increased its absorptive capability and quality of interaction with ecosystem's stakeholders, better targeting and acquiring external knowledge through collaborative explorations; and (3) dealt with the external barriers and core-rigidities at both firm and industrial ecosystem levels through two different and complementary ways of developing low-cost offer for public transport. Thus, low cost approach appears as an eligible federative guidance to build dynamic capability, similar investigation could benefit to other firms.