Sustainable Competitive Advantage for Project‐Management Consultants

There is increasing evidence that the nature of corporate planning in business is moving toward external strategic concepts of sustainable competitive advantage (SCA). There is some evidence that this is beginning to happen in the larger contracting and development enterprises in construction. The construction sector in most economies is still largely dominated by small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). There has been little evidence of SCA being applied by SMEs. It is argued by some that such concepts are inapplicable to the SME segment of the construction industry. This case study documents the results of a strategic‐planning workshop undertaken for an Australian project‐management consultancy. The paper describes the background to the company and gives full details of the strategic‐planning discussions and assessments made. These resulted in a business strategy being identified. The extent to which this strategy was implemented and whether it resulted in an SCA for the company is considered in light of events at the strategic‐planning session. The result is a detailed example of the way that strategic‐planning concepts can apply at the SME level and an evaluation of the extent of their success in implementation.