In situations where rivals can readily copy the successful features of a company's strategy or duplicate its attempts to attract customers, the only dependable path to competitive advantage is for a company to staff the company's organization with smarter and more talented people. outexecute rivals by developing a collection of resources and capabilities that enables the company to perform certain important value chain activities at lower cost than rivals or with greater effectiveness than rivals (thereby gaining the ability to deliver more value to customers via either a lower price or a more appealing product). do a better job of training, empowering, motivating, and compensating employees than rivals. perform value chain activities quicker or faster than rivals can. outsource more value chain activities than rivals do and thereby achieve lower operating costs.

outexecute rivals by developing a collection of resources and capabilities that enables the company to perform certain important value chain activities at a lower cost than rivals or with greater effectiveness than rivals (thereby gaining the ability to deliver more value to customers via either a lower price or a more appealing product).

Explanation:

We note here that the company's rivals can readily copy the successful features of the company's strategy or duplicate its attempts to attract customers, therefore, the company has leverage if builds strenght its on certain important value chain activities at a lower cost than rivals or with greater effectiveness than rivals.

For example, a company's product may be cheaper because of its reduced value chain cost than that of its competitors. Going by the normal law of demand, the lower the price the higher the demand for such a company's products.

you have to put the parentheses like this:

in fact, you have to perform the operation inside parentheses first, and then proceed in order: