One multinational corporation in information technology had been regarded as the undisputed worldwide industry leader for several decades in the past. The leadership was so obvious and impartial that its leadership was taken for granted in every aspects of it, such as in company size, market share, business performance, management systems, quality of products, services and especially the excellence in its human resources.



Unfortunately the dynamic of the industry had eventually brought the company into financial problem in the early 80. Despite the company was by a very wide margin still the biggest in terms of size and revenue, that attribute was about the only thing that the company was able to retained. It lost all other attributes related to industry leadership to its much smaller competitors.



In an attempt to survive, the company desperately put an all out effort to turn the company around though transformation. A full-blown transformation was staged; a big undertaking requiring the involvement, participation and commitment of the whole rank of the company in a span of several years. The big efforts started showing the result; and by 1995 the company had managed to go through the ordeal and went into the black again. Now the company is determined to recoup its past leadership in every aspects of it and aimed to regain market share of the lost years.



One of the undertaking that the company chooses to do from a multitude of alternatives is by establishing a direct marketing function. Will this direct marketing function be able to help the company to compete and manage a sustainable growth in the future.



This paper will discuss and analyze this matter from a very specific viewpoint whereby the direct marketing f4nction is seen as a core capability to the company. Will this direct marketing function as core capability be a good and strong competitive advantage that will help the company grow as intended.



The analysis will be based mainly on the school of thought in unconventional strategic management as brought by Hamel and Prahalad in their book Competing for the Future.



Research location: The Widget Corp.

Supervisor: [Wagiono Ismangil]

Accepted: [1996]