Competitors

Andrews, K., 2010. The Concept of Corporate Strategy, 3rd Edition. Financial Times Prentice Hall. [Accessed 13 April 2014]

I am going the review the Article "The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy" written by Micheal E. Porter. This article was published in Harvard business Review in year 2008.

Michael E. Porter, a renowned business strategist, identified five competitive forces that influence planning strategies that businesses use. The model, called Porter’s Five Forces was later updated to include the impact that the internet plays on the strategies that businesses use. These five forces are:

G.G. Dess, G.T. Lumpkin, M.L. Taylor, A.A. Thompson, and A.J. Strickland III, Strategic Management (Boston, McGraw Hill, 2004) pp. 141-148.

Hunger, J. D., & Wheelen, T. L. (2011). Essentials of strategic management (5th ed.). Upper

Awareness of the five forces can help a company understand the structure of its industry and stake out a position that is more profitable and less vulnerable to attack. By understanding how the five competitive forces that shape strategy influences profitability in a particular industry, executives can develop a strategy for enhancing their company’s long-term profits (Porter, 2014).

As pointed out by Schmitz (2012), how well an industry and the executives abilities to manage strategies, changes and challenges, will weigh heavy on and influence successes as well as failures, which are mapped out in Porter’s Five Forces and the very well known as “The Five P’s.”

Baye, M.R., Prince, J.T. (2014). Managerial Economics and Business Strategy. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin

“Porter’s five forces”: Introduction. “Porter’s five forces” is widely applied in today’s business world. Harvard Professor Michael E. Porter’s first HBR article “How competitive forces shape strategy” was published in 1979. It became revolutionary in the field of strategy. Porter’s subsequent work has brought big changes to the study of competitive strategy for corporations, regions, and nations. With assistance from his colleagues from Harvard Business School, Porter continues to update and extend his classic work, providing practical guidance for

Porter (1980) created a model which considers five important forces (Porters five forces) which aims to establish a profitable and sustainable position against the forces that determine industry competition, therefore position themselves within it and differentiating themselves where necessary in order to strategically gain a competitive advantage - this model gives vision of: Threat of new entrants, Threat of substitute products or services, Bargaining power of customers , Bargaining power of suppliers and Intensity of competitive rivalry (Porter 1980). Using models and academic theory like this allows strategy to be formed through a rational and an analytical process. Chandlers (1962) cited in (Lomash 2003) suggests the analytical process is about the determination of long-term clear goals, adopting actions to achieve these goals and then building the resources within the organization around this strategy in order to ensure it succeeds. Johnson (2005), likewise, simply suggested a three step approach to strategy - analysis, choice and implementation which goes hand-in-hand with intended strategy.

This model was articulated for the first time by Michael Porter in 1979 in his successful record-breaker book named “How competitive forces shape strategy” (Porter, p.78). Five forces are illustrated in following picture.

Strategy can be defined as being different from one’s competitors, finding the race to operate and accomplished it. According to Michael Porter (1996), while becoming better at what you do is desirable, it will not benefit you in the long run because it is something other competitors can also do. Strategies for organizations are originally developed by Michael E. Porter in 1979 by introducing the five forces model. A company can identify the industry profitability and attractiveness by analyzing the five forces of Porter (Johnson et al., 2008). And then a reasonable strategy can be set up in line with the strengths and the weakness of an organization is able to create a plan for a stronger position for the organization within its

Porter describes three choices of strategic position that influence the configuration of a firm's activities:

Michael E. Porter, associate professor published the article titled “How Competitive Forces shape Strategy” in Harvard Business Review in 1979. This article is retitled as “The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy” and published in Harvard Business Review in 2008. Michael E. Porter developed the model of Five Competitive Forces which is defined as “Competitive Strategy – Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors”. It has become a main device for analyzing an organizations structure in strategic practices.

Johnson, Wittington, Scholes, Angwin and Regnér (2014, p. 3) defines strategy as ‘the long-term direction of an organisation’.