International Business Strategies : Porter 's Diamond Model

The early 1980’s seen a period of evolution in strategic management, the resource-based view was gaining acceptance, with the intensification of global foreign competition. In the same period, the more established theory of competitive advantage that is primarily determined by external environmental factors reached maturity with Michael Porter’s five forces model. Porter’s five forces framework provided a much more specific basis for systematic analysis of industry attractiveness, focusing on just the economic environment and neglecting the environments it is associated with, such as the technological, political, legal, all of which affect the performance of the firm (Nixon et al,

Fit is another driver of strategy according to Porter. Because strategy is about combining activities, competitive advantage is obtained when all activities involved fit together and reinforce one another. This creates a chain that is as strong as its strongest link. This strategy becomes effective when one activity enhances another, creating a superior competitive advantage. Porter also believes that strategic positions should span a decade or more, not just one planning cycle. Porter does not believe that strategy should be defined as a quest for productivity and speed. He believes we must widen the analysis of an industry and streamline productivity to achieve optimal strategic positioning.

In addition, the internationalisation is the strategy to occupy the foreign market step by step. Also, the porter’s competitive advantages theory is to analysis the strategies of global business. They could divide to three strategies: over cost leading, diversity, and market focus strategy (Passemard& Calantone, 2000). The cost leading strategy focus on establish efficient scale production facility and minimize the research and advertising cost. The diversity strategy focus on introduce some unique product in whole industry. But, this strategy will with a high cost price. The focus strategy is attack of a particular customer group or specialist regional market, its purpose to design the service for a particular target. Consequently, the companies need to consider the internal and external factor condition, such as: factor condition, demand condition, related and supporting industries condition, and firm strategy and rivalry. They are called diamond system. This dynamic system gives the company a standard to measure theirs advantage and disadvantage before they enter foreign market. Moreover, the specific advantage in Internationalisation of Production is give companies a new choose for exhausted market (Strange,S. 1992). In an international environment, the companies will face more uncertain and unequal condition than home market, therefore the companies need keep the attention of more factors:

Porter’s model aims to enable managers not only to understand their industry environment but also to shape their firm’s strategy. The five competitive forces are threat of entry, power of suppliers, power of buyers, threat of substitutes, and rivalry among existing competitors. “As a rule of thumb, the stronger the five forces, the lower the industry’s profit potential- making the industry less attractive to competitors. The weaker the five forces, the greater the industry’s profit potential – making the industry more attractive” (Rothaermel, 2013, p. 65). It is recommended that managers position their company in an industry in such a way that relaxes the constraints of strong forces and

Porters Generic Competitive Strategies: The relative position of a company within its industry concludes whether the profitability of the firm is above or below the industry’s average. The above average profitability of the firm is fundamentally showing the sustainable competitive advantage in its long run. According to Michael Porter, competitive advantages originate from the value of a firm and there are two types of competitive advantages, which a company can own. These are low cost or differentiation. For any company, in

Porter’s Five Forces was developed in 1979 by Michael Porter as a framework to assess and evaluate the competitive position of a company in an industry. It is based on the theory that there are five forces which identify the attractiveness and competitive strength of an industry. It is helpful to gain an understanding of a firm’s current positon and the position that the firm may look to capture in the future. Porter’s five forces are also used to

Michael Porter investigated why nations have a competitive advantage in specific industries his findings saw two basic types of competitive advantage that firms could pose low cost or differentiation. If you combine the two types of competitive advantage and allow room for a way in which firm wish to achieve them this will lead to three generic strategies which will achieve higher average performances in industries: cost leadership, differentiation and focus.

Hill, C. (2011). International business, competing in the global marketplace. (8 ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

In the business industry, if businesses want to export their goods and services to other countries, they must become familiar with and adopt international and global strategies. Consequently, there are three types of international and global business strategies. The first type is international, which entails conducting a significant amount of activities outside the home country, yet its focus remains on the home market (Fung, 2014). The second type is multinational, which consists of operating in multiple countries, yet the headquarters is in its home country, not to mention that the competitive advantage will vary by country (Fung, 2014). The third and final type is global, which is when the organization treats the whole world as one market and one source of supply, not to mention, that its competitive advantage is contingent of common brands, standardized products, and global scale production (Fung,

There exist classical theories of international trade which discuss the reasons why particular industries and particular economies are more competitive than the rest. In his book The Competitive Advantage of Nations, Michael E Porter argued or analyzed the broad factors which determined the competitiveness of certain economies and industries. This model is based on four nation’s specific factors and two external variables. The four cornerstones of the diamond model are the factor conditions, the demand conditions, the related and supporting industries and

“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

One of the most well-known frameworks for analyzing competitiveness is Porter’s competitive forces model. According to Porter a company must confront at least five competitive forces in the business environment. The five forces are generalized as follows:

In the article “The Competitive Advantage of Nations” Michael Porter describes a diamond shaped relationship of forces that define a country’s potential for being competitive in a specified industry. The four points on the diamond representing the different forces are: factor conditions; demand conditions; firm strategy, structure and rivalry; and related and supporting industries. According to Porter, the four points apply pressure to each other resulting in a national

The country has an interesting competitive advantage to analyze, and it can be related to Porter’s articles. Indeed, there are different theories shown in Porter’s articles

Successful use of the Porter Model Analysis includes identifying the sources of competition, the strength and likelihood of that competition existing, and strategic recommendations for the action a company should take to develop barriers to the various forms of competition (Prahalad and Gary, 1990). With the realization about intensity and power of competitive forces, organizations can develop options to influence them in a way that improves their own competitive position. The result could be a new strategic option, e.g. a new positioning; differentiation for competitive products of strategic partnerships.