دیدگاه مبتنی بر منابع مزیت رقابتی در بندر سنگاپور

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the resources, including operations and information technology that have contributed to the competitive position of the Port of Singapore. We present a detailed discussion of the Port and its resources, and analyze the case using the resource-based view of strategy. A firm with a competitive advantage excels in time, quality, or cost, or a combination of such over its competitors. We argue that a combination of resources including supportive government policies, ample investment, and well thought out operations and information technology along with location and a natural deep harbor to help create a sustainable advantage for the Port. We find that Singapore compensated for some of its natural disadvantages like small land area by successfully applying information technology in critical areas to increase the island's capacity to handle shipping.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the key resources, including operations and information technology (IT) that have contributed to the competitive position of the Port of Singapore. The Port of Singapore has achieved a sustainable competitive advantage relative to other locations by carefully building a set of resources that other Ports would find very difficult to match. Some of these resources are natural (a superb sheltered harbor), some can be replicated at a significant cost (infrastructure, well-educated and hard working labor force), and some are particularly valuable in Singapore, but less useful in other Ports (scheduling systems for multiple cranes to handle the complexity of multi-tier stacking of containers). There have been a number of studies of the Port of Singapore and the information technology that supports it, including a series of Harvard Business School teaching cases. One discusses Singapore TradeNet, an EDI system that dramatically reduced turnaround times for processing information about ship arrivals, loadings and unloadings and departures; see Konsynski and King (1990a) and Applegate et al. (1993). A subsequent case describes the efforts of Singapore to become an ‘intelligent island’ by developing a national network infrastructure (Applegate et al., 1995). A comprehensive description of the Port of Singapore may also be found in Applegate et al., 2001. Konsynski and King (1990b) describe Hong Kong's TradeLink, which is interesting to compare with the EDI system in Singapore. The case in this paper extends this prior work by analyzing the Port's strategy using a resource-based view, and by showing the importance of operations and information technology in creating an advantage. We believe that RBV helps explain and interpret the contribution of technology to the Port of Singapore (PSA). This view of competitive advantage is based on the unique resources that a firm possesses. To the extent that a competitor cannot create or substitute for these resources, they provide an advantage to the firm that owns them. Two succinct presentations of the resource-based view (RBV) may be found in papers by Barney, 1991 and Peteraf, 1993. Jarvenpaa and Leidner (1998) have used this theory to analyze the case of a company in Mexico, a developing country, while Wade and Hulland (2004) review the RBV and information systems research. Section 1 of the paper presents a case study of the Port of Singapore, followed by an analysis of the case using the RBV of strategy. The paper concludes with the implications for management.

Singapore began with two natural resources: its location and a large, protected, deep-water Port. These resources, while rare and valuable, were imitable and substitutable. Fig. 7 illustrates the Port's set of resources. Singapore combined capital with its location and natural harbor to invest in Port operations. Foreign investment helped generate the needed capital; in addition the government built ancillary infrastructure like roads, housing, sanitation, water and electrical systems. The management of PSA saw operations and information technologies as a way to solve problems and expand the capacity of the Port.An organization can never assume that an advantage will last; competitors do not give up easily. In 2002, Singapore lost Maersk Sealand and Evergreen Marine left PSA and moved to the Port of Tanjung Pelepas in Johor Bahru, Malaysia. The fundamental reason for the move was that the Malaysian government offered the two a say in managing the Port along with dedicated berths. Cost-wise, Johor may have an edge over Singapore, but this advantage may well be negated by PSA's higher efficiency and shorter turn-around times. For example, Mr Poon, Director of Evergreen, stated in 1998 that PSA was the most competitive and efficient Port in the region, with the fastest turnaround time and the most efficient operations times. In response to the loss of these carriers, PSA dropped the handling rate for empty containers by 50% and is considering giving operators a stake in PSA's operations. The Port cut fees by a total of S$300 million for 1 year, and began a new policy to promote greater customer focus and flexibility. PSA worked with China Ocean Shipping Group Company (COSCO) to establish the COSCO–PSA terminal in December 2003, a dedicated berthing arrangement for COSCO ships. The government has established an Economic Review Committee with nearly 100 members who are looking at ways to ‘transform the economy (New York Times 4/30/02)’. In 2003, PSA recovered the loss of the roughly 3 million TEUs from Maersk and Evergreen the year before.3