What is a core competency?
Core competencies are the collective skills and technologies that let a company serve many markets and that rivals find hard to copy. C.K. Prahalad and Gary Hamel introduced the idea in a 1990 Harvard Business Review article. They argued that a true core competence shows up across several product lines, matters to the end customer, and rests on years of shared learning that a rival cannot buy quickly.
Why it matters to a revenue leader
In a buy-and-build platform, the competence the sponsor is paying for may sit in one branch, such as a team that handles complex hospital compliance work. A revenue leader who names that competence can sell it across every acquired branch. If no one can name it, the platform is a collection of local businesses sharing a logo, and the exit story is weaker for it.
Example
A fire protection platform's founding company has deep expertise in special hazard suppression for data centers. After a series of add-on acquisitions, the CRO trains the acquired sellers to spot data center and telecom sites in their territories and routes those deals to the specialist team.
"What can we do that a buyer cannot get from any other provider in our markets?"
Sources
- The Core Competence of the Corporation - Harvard Business Review (Prahalad and Hamel, 1990) checked 9 Oct 2026
- Core competency - Wikipedia checked 9 Oct 2026