Describe how the pursuit of sustainability after the development of strategic capabilities.
Development of strategic capabilities in a company is dependent on the company’s ability to utilize all the internal resources that are available to them. This implies that being able to utilize the resources available may not last long if not managed properly. The short life time of strategic capabilities may be attributed to factors such as burn out among employees. It is therefore important to include sustainability when developing strategic capabilities. Sustainable management manages a company’s impact on people (social), planet (environment), and financial development (profits). Sustainability therefore makes a company viable in the long term. Sustainability is a preventative measure. Inclusion of sustainability does not affect the decision making criteria. The criteria used to evaluate success of developed strategic capabilities is not affected by including sustainability. Sustainability implies that as the company makes decisions about its economic future, more weight should be given to environmental and social outcomes. Companies mainly implement strategies for economic purposes. The inclusion of sustainability has been done selectively in the past, however some industries which have direct impact on the environment have been practicing it throughout. Taking the example of the transport industry, moving goods by truck over long distances may make economic sense as it may appear cheaper and requires less equipment to get cargo to the final destination compared to trains. However, using trucks increases the amount of emissions into the atmosphere, risks the lives of people on roads and destroys roads. With the inclusion of sustainability, the transport industry overlooks transport of bulky goods in trucks favoring the railway lines. There are no limits to the role that a company can play in sustainable development. However, the scale of sustainability effort depends on the size of a company. The scale also depends on the managers responsible for running the firm. Some consider the main aim of any business is in profit making while others acknowledge they have a role in the society. Transition into sustainability challenging to some companies. The adoption of sustainability implies that the company has to transition into having sustainable practices. In some industries, the cost of adoption these practices is relatively high. Taking the example of a processing plant which had traditional processing machines whose emittance levels are very high. Buying new processing machines is expensive. Sustainability decisions for such companies is complex but such companies can contribute to the society and environment in other ways such as cleaning waste products. Sustainability is therefore a decision making basis and not an element of implementation.