Core competency refers to the resources of the strategic advantages associated with an enterprise, such as the ability to pool technical and knowledge capabilities that allow it to gain competitiveness in the marketplace (van Dam & Marcus, 2012) . These are vital in the business setting in that they allow a firm to what it does best by combining its diverse operations, activities, and resources, which differentiate a corporation from its rivals.
For Blattner Energy (a renewable energy company) it has two major competencies. Firstly, electrical competencies of the company allow the organization to differentiate itself from other contractors that specialize in the construction of utilize-scale wind-farm. It comprises of engineers who specialize in specific tasks and electrical subcontractors who have sufficient experience in the industry. Secondly, the corporation has unrivaled self-performance while allows it to differ from other renewable energy contractors since it is able to execute wind-farm aspects on the behalf of its clients (Blattner Holding Company, 2018) . The management team of the organization has proven skills and self-performance abilities that allow them to comprehend the vital aspects of each project.
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A relationship prevails between core competence and strategy. For instance, core competence entails a strategy, which prescribes the activities that an organization should take to allow it realize competitive advantage in the industry. To realize core competency, organizations should deploy strategies in their strong areas to ensure that their competitors cannot imitate their approaches (Park, 2017) . Here, organizations need to make sure that they are able to orient their strategies to allow them leverage on their core competencies while core competency serves as the vital foundation for adding value to an organization.
The relationship that exists between core competence and strategic architecture is that strategic architecture allows an organization bring together information pieces, such as the mission, stakeholders, and the vision. The other areas that strategic architecture plays a vital role are attributed to operation plans, core strategies, as well as the activities required for attaining them. The chances of a business faltering in the absence of strategic architecture are high (van Dam & Marcus, 2012) . In this case, when enterprises manage to map out their core competencies, they are capable of establishing strategic competencies, which communicate the direction that an organization is heading while not allowing rivals to imitate its strategy.
Core competencies are considered as gateways to the future because they assist in mapping future approaches clearly. They provide business leaders with the opportunity for adapting to any challenges they encounter rather than only what they encounter (van Dam & Marcus, 2012) . Thus, business leaders should ensure to establish critical competencies to allow them remain prepared for future leadership and business challenges.
Nurturing and protecting core competencies is important. Core competences allow companies to have technical strength, improve their ability to manage relations with customers, and handle processes in an efficient manner (van Dam & Marcus, 2012) . Nurturing and protecting core competencies allow companies to add value to their customers and concentrate on their competency areas. In this perspective, therefore, organizations need to ma ke sure they take advantage of their core strengths and perform them optimally.
For core competencies, they usually wear out. For instance, generational preferences keep changing whereas new kinds of collaborations revolving around technology keep emerging (Park, 2017) . As such, they keep shaping the need for leaders to update their core competences to allow them to remain relevant in the marketplace.
When testing for core competence, three tests prevail, including relevance, difficult of imitation, and breadth of application. Firstly, on relevance, the competence should ensure that customers receive something that has significant influence on their decision for a product or service that the customers need. Irrelevant services or products do not give companies competitive pressure. Secondly, difficulty of imitation requires that core competence should not be easy to imitate, hence allowing an organization to remain ahead of rivals in the market (van Dam & Marcus, 2012) . Lastly, the breadth of application requires that a core competency should allow an organization to access prospective markets to ensure unending sustainability.
References
Blattner Holding Company. (2018). Blattner Energy is the premier EPC wind contractor in North America. Retrieved from http://blattnerenergy.com/power-generation-construction/wind-energy-contractor/
Park, Y. W. (2017). Business architecture strategy and platform-based ecosystems. Berlin: Springer.
van Dam, N., & Marcus, J. (2012). Organization and management: An international approach. Abingdon: Routledge.
