Dominant Design - Core Rigidities

Core Rigidities

Over a period of time, suppliers to a market place will invest more resource (from research and development capabilities, employee skillsets and machine tooling to business process support) into the dominant design. Its core competency will become ever more closely aligned to the dominant design, these core competencies serve it well as long as the dominant design continues to dominate.

However, when a new design emerges that has sufficient improvements over the dominant design, these core competencies become core rigidities. There are numerous examples of companies unable to adjust themselves to new technologies exploited by companies with less investment in the dominant design.