Literature Review Of Porter's Competitive Strategy

Porter has identified five (5) competitive forces that shape every industry and every market. The forces determine the intensity of competition and hence the profitability and attractiveness of an industry. Based on the information derived from this analysis, management can decide how to influence or to exploit particular characteristics of this industry.

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,

COMPETITIVE POSITION IS WHAT GIVES ORGANISATIONS COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE. HOW DOES THE UNDERSTANDING OF PORTERS COMPETITIVE FORCES HELP ORGANISATIONS GAIN FAVOURABLE COMPETITIVE POSITIONS?

In 1980 and later in 1985 Michael Porter wrote two books. First one is “Competitive Strategy” and the second one is “Competitive Advantage” which are emphasized in explaining strategies which guides companies through analyzing themselves in their industries and by that analysis he guides them to choose the best strategy in order to be successful and achieve sustain competitive advantage their existing market. This paper focus on two of Porter's strategies that are “Five Force Analysis” and “Generic Strategies”. These strategies are still using by some of the company, but they are started to be replaced by new approaches. They became outdated for today’s highly competitive marketplace because they only focus on competing in existing market. In 2005, W. Chan Kim and

Most businesses strive to attain competitive advantage, whether they explicitly realize this or not. The concept of competitive advantage was propagated by Michael Porter, in his landmark book Competitive Strategy. He defined competitive advantage as “Competitive advantage grows out of value a firm is able to create for its buyers that exceeds the firm 's cost of creating it.” (Porter, 1985) The concept provided a new paradigm for looking at the role of competition in firm’s success or failure in the long term. The succinct definition encapsulates number of related concepts that help firms identify and analyze their competitive advantage. In normal parlance, competitive advantage is described as the advantage a firm has that helps it get ahead of competitors or gain higher market share. Whether the management explicitly realizes this fact or not, they usually are focused on identifying and developing traits that help their firm get ahead of competition and have sustained growth in the long term. Many organizations that do not have strategic separate strategic thought process, try to attain the same advantage through micro decisions like product portfolio, cost cutting, pricing decisions, location selection, etc. However, their final objective is competitive advantage. Barney (1991) explained number of internal resource that help the firm in attaining competitive advantage in the long term. In this analysis, the author defines key terms related to competitive advantage, and

Porter (1980, 1985) contribution, which is also the theory and practice of corporate profound and widespread impact. Since then, many strategists from different areas of inspection or reference to his work, even criticism. The purpose of this paper is to provide a critique of Porter 's work, the combination of these documents and discuss the statement “The generic strategy options of Porter are insufficient and inappropriate for today’s complex, hyper-competitive environment”, as well as giving current business example for examination.

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

Every organization has to analyze its business environment before making policies and strategies for its day to day operations, marketing and promotional efforts, and competing with the industry rivals (Loudon, Stevens, & Wrenn 2004). The key factors of the business environment that affect the business operations of a company include political, economic, technological, environmental, cultural, and demographical factors. In addition to these factors, an analysis of the competitive forces is also essential in order to assess the potential threats and intensity of rivalry present in the industry (Ritchie & Crouch 2003). If an organization does not give importance to the analysis of its business environment, it may not be able to compete in the industry for a long period of time (Hill & Jones 2007).

A firms external environment is divided into two composites: the general environment and the industry environment. Fahey (1999) states that the general environment encompasses the broader society that influences an industry and the firms within it. The industry environment is the set of factors that directly influences a firm and its competitive actions and responses (Chen et al. 2010). Identifying opportunities and threats is an important objective of studying the general environment. Opportunities help companies achieve strategic competitiveness whilst threats may hinder a company's efforts to achieve strategic competitiveness (Gilad 2011). A firm will scan, monitor, forecast and assess the seven segments of the general environment to determine their effects on the firm. Firms identify early signals, detect meaning,develop projections, and determine the timing and importance of environmental changes and trends for firms' strategies and their management.

In his article “The five competitive forces that shape strategy“, Michael Porter (2008) updates and extends his “five forces” framework he first introduced in 1979 and which has influenced the academic and business research for decades. He reaffirms that “THREAT OF ENTRY”, “THE POWER OF SUPPLIERS”, “THE POWER OF BUYERS”, THE THREAT OF SUBSTITUTES”, and “RIVALRY AMONG EXISTING COMPETITORS” are the forces that shape every single industry, and a thorough understanding of such forces help analyze everything from the intensity of competition to the profitability and attractiveness of any industry. The framework has two dimensions; the vertical dimension that connects

“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

The threat of new entrants refers to the threat posed by new competitors within an industry. If it is easy for new firms to enter the industry barriers to entry are low and the threat of new entrants is high. A profitable industry attracts more competitors. Economies of scale, learning curve effects and other macro factors impact the nature of an industry 's

51]. The model suggests a successful businesses strategy to wart-off competition by careful application of an “environmental analysis”. The Porter model proposes five elemental strategic defenses against five potential forces: threat of new entrants, rivalry among competitive firms, bargaining power of suppliers, bargaining power of buyers, and the threat of substitution products.

There is no exact definition for Strategy because it is defined in different ways as some people think that make a plan to get success in future is a strategy while others think that future is hard to predict. Exceptionally, some Japanese companies have no strategies though these companies have a good cost and continuous improvement. The definition for strategy is to explain the direction and scope of any company for the long term to achieve advantage for the company or to fulfill the needs and expectations. Strategy is different from Operational effectiveness and they work in different manner in the companies. Michael Porter, who is a professor at Harvard Business School and a strategy expert, says that it should determine how organizational resources and skills should create advantage. Accordingly, Strategy can also be defined as an organizational change during actions in the organizations for better and advantageous results or to determine how we win and get success in the future period. It is a needful developed plan with respect to market to compete the world. Organizations should be responsible for competitive changes according to the market. It is the main goal for any Organizations. Business/IT strategy is very important to know the success rate of your business. Apart from Business Strategy, the other two main types of strategy are Corporate Strategy and Team Strategy. These strategies give competitive advantage of cost leadership, differentiation and focus. The

Competitive advantage is explained by Mahoney and Pandian (1992) as the function of industry analysis, organizational governance and the firm’s effects in the form of resource advantages and strategies. In order for a firm to be competitive it must adapt to the volatile business environment and through strategic management decisions establish a competitive advantage that will ultimately produce superior performance relative to its competitors (Akimova 2000).