Typically a firm will focus on one or two core competences, and outsource other things to its allies.

ECONOMIST: Mergers and alliances

The innovation engine and superior market understanding are the only core competences a scalpel company will need to own.

FORBES: What Happened to the Office?

Yet the real reason for fading fads is not that executives have built into their everyday activities such now-familiar ideas as core competences and total-quality management.

ECONOMIST: Management fashion

Although it seems a bit odd to take lessons in core competences and shareholder value from an autocrat who balances handbags and cognac, Mr Arnault's plan has some logic.

ECONOMIST: Guinness and GrandMet

However, as Mr Bonsignore takes over that task, a longer-term question still remains about the viability of conglomerates in an age in which management people talk about core competences even more than six sigma.

ECONOMIST: Honeywell and AlliedSignal

But other firms (the survey cites Lucent Technologies and Corning) tend to see headquarters as the embodiment of the company's core competences, adding value through superior research (as at Lucent) or by building alliances and joint ventures (as at Corning).

ECONOMIST: Lean, mean and has-been