Competitive Strategy
Techniques for Analyzing
Industries and Competitiors
Now nearing its 60th printing
in English and translated into nineteen languages, Michael E. Porter's Competitive
Strategy has transformed the theory, practice, and teaching of business strategy
throughout the world. Electrifying in its simplicity like all great breakthroughs Porter's
analysis of industries captures the complexity of industry competition in five underlying
forces. Porter introduces one of the most powerful competitive tools yet developed: his
three generic strategies lowest cost, differentiation, and focus which bring structure to
the task of strategic positioning. He shows how competitive advantage can be defined in
terms of relative cost and relative prices, thus linking it directly to profitability, and
presents a whole new perspective on how profit is created and divided. In the almost two
decades since publication, Porter's framework for predicting competitor behavior has
transformed the way in which companies look at their rivals and has given rise to the new
discipline of competitor assessment.
More than a million managers
in both large and small companies, investment analysts, consultants, students, and
scholars throughout the world have internalized Porter's ideas and applied them to assess
industries, understand competitors, and choose competitive positions. The ideas in the
book address the underlying fundamentals of competition in a way that is independent of
the specifics of the ways companies go about competing.
Competitive Strategy has
filled a void in management thinking. It provides an enduring foundation and grounding
point on which all subsequent work can be built. By bringing a disciplined structure to
the question of how firms achieve superior profitability, Porter's rich frameworks and
deep insights comprise a sophisticated view of competition unsurpassed in the last
quarter-century.
Michael E. Porter, one of the
world's leading authorities on competitive strategy and international competitiveness, is
the C. Roland Christensen Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business
School. In 1983, Professor Porter was appointed to President Reagan's Commission on
Industrial Competitiveness, the initiative that triggered the competitiveness debate in
America. He serves as an advisor to heads of state, governors, mayors, and CEOs throughout
the world. The recipient of the Wells Prize in Economics, the Adam Smith Award, three
McKinsey Awards, and honorary doctorates from the Stockholm School of Economics and six
other universities, Porter is the author of fourteen books, among them Competitive
Advantage, The Competitive Advantage of Nations, and Cases in Competitive Strategy, all
published by The Free Press. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.
396 pages