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Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors

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Michael E. Porter is a professor at Harvard Business School and a leading authority on Strategy and Competitiveness. He did his MBA and Ph.D from Harvard. He has served as an advisor to several business and government organizations. He was also a founder of the strategy and management consulting firm, Monitor Group.
Professor Porter is best known for his landmark books that defined the field of Strategy - Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors (1980) and Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance (1985). These books are must reads at the leading business schools.
I read Competitive Strategy (1980) for a Strategy course. It starts with a bang. On the very second page of the first chapter you will find the figure for the famous Five Forces Driving Industry Competition. While Porter did not intend this framework to be used for case interviews, in reality, this is a very important framework to know for the case interviews conducted by leading strategy and management consultancy firms. All top MBAs and anybody who has ever been hired by the best strategy and management consultancy firms knows this framework, and has probably read this book. The first chapter immediately proceeds to explaining each of the five forces:
1. Threat of new entrants
2. Intensity of rivalry among existing competitors
3. Pressure from substitute products
4. Bargaining power of buyers
5. Bargaining power of suppliers
While the first chapter alone is worth the cost of this book, I recommend it for the wisdom contained in the rest of the book. The chapters are organized under three parts (General Analytical Techniques, Generic Industry Environments, and Strategic Decisions). There are several thought provoking discussions on concepts such as A Framework for Competitor Analysis (Future goals, Assumptions, Current strategy, Capabilities), Market Signals and a Strategic Analysis of Vertical Integration.
This book is the single most important book on business strategy. It is a classic - like the management classics of Peter Drucker. As with every classic, the examples are old (not to be confused with outdated). But, the competition HP faced for electronic calculators in the 70s, it still faces for computers today. There have been several changes in the players, technology, industries, globalization, etc, but the foundation built by Porter's masterpieces are still relevant today.
Porter's second book Competitive Advantage (1985) introduced another important tool - The Value Chain. This analyzes primary activities (Inbound logistics, Operations, Outbound logistics, Marketing and Sales, Services) and support activities (Procurement, Technology development, Human resource management, Firm infrastructure) that firms must analyze to create value and competitive advantage.
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Michael Porter is a Harvard Business School professor and a leading authority on competition and strategy. This book is a landmark in the field of strategy/strategic management, which later has become known as the positioning school. The book provides a great framework.

The book consists of three parts - General Analytical Techniques, Generic Industry Environments, and Strategic Decisions. In addition, the two appendices - Portfolio Techniques in Competitor Analysis, and How to Conduct an Industry Analysis - should also be mentioned as they are very useful.

In Part I, Porter discussess the structural analysis of industries (with the world-famous five forces), the three generic competitive strategies (overall cost leadership, focus, and differentiation), an excellent framework for competitor analysis, competitive moves, strategy toward buyers and suppliers, structural analysis within industries (strategic groups, strategic mapping, mobility barriers), and industry evolution (life cycle, evolutionary processes).

In Part II, Porter discusses competitive strategy within various generic industry environments, such as fragmented industries (with no real market leader), emerging industries (e-commerce and Internet are excellent examples, although not mentioned in this book as it was written in 1980), mature industries, declining industries, and global industries.

In Part III, Porter discusses strategic decisions which businesses/firms can take, such as vertical integration (forward, backward, partnerships), capacity expansion, and entry into new industries/businesses.

Even after 20 years, most of this book still stands strong, although some people will argue this. Michael Porter has responded to his critics in the 1996-Harvard Business Review article 'What is Strategy?' which is available as e-book (pdf-file) at Amazon.com. It is still a MUST for MBA-students and all other people interested in strategy/strategic management. The book is simple to read with plenty of examples and thus does not become a struggle.

Anyone would agree that this book is the best overview of competitive strategy analysis ever written. The strength of the book is a solid outline of subjects and questions to improve your thinking, and get to be a step ahead of the competition. In highly-competitive, commodity businesses, that's usually what strategies focus on.

On the other hand, the rapid advances of knowledge and technology mean that the relevant benchmark is perfection, not the competitor, in defining an ideal best practice. In that world, this book has serious limitations, because the competitive dimension is often less important than the customer and user dimension these days.

Any business arena begins, as Peter Drucker so aptly put it, with the task "to create a customer." That reminder is especially relevant today when they are so many new ways to serve a customer's needs that no one has ever considered before. The strategic point of 'Blown to Bits' for example is that almost every business will see its vertical value chain (moving from resources through to the customer) broken apart into tiny segments each served by specialists. If you did not begin with that perspective in analyzing the impact of electronically-based business practices, you could easily focus on the wrong tasks using this book to create an over-broad strategy focus, rather than concentrating on just a few areas.

I suspect that the applications of Moore's Law and Metcalfe's Law need to be explicitly considered as part of the analysis that Professor Porter is recommending.

A more general weakness in this book is that it assumes that future conditions will be stable enough to draw conclusions about which conditions will be favorable, without giving enough guidance on how to deal with the increasing frequencies and degrees of volatility that we see (in areas like financial markets, commodity prices, the weather, changing customer preferences, and so forth).

Although no book that takes such a narrow focus can help but have weaknesses (like having the podiatrist not notice that you have kidney problems), if you want a good start of how to think about competitors, this is the book for you. Just be sure you keep developing yours strategy with additional dimensions after you finish using this analysis.

If you have read none of Professor Porter's works, this is the one book you should read.

When I started as a strategy consultant, Porter's Competitive Strategy and the classic five forces model within provided me with a first look at the process and mindset of the pure strategist. A weekend spent reading this book gave me the framework to intelligently analyze company strategy. I've made it required reading for all new employees.

If you are a business student (undergrad or MBA) and for some reason you have not read this, read it and assume everyone you interview with has read it. Use its basic principles in a case study interview and you'll pass with flying colors. Anyone in business of any sort should read this book and try applying it to your own business environment. Its pretty amazing how clear your business issues will appear.

Now for the negatives. It is very out of date, so do not use any of his observations on any of the industries mentioned. His case studies towards the end of the book are so irrelevant they are not worth reading, just skimming. Read his justifications carefully, since you may find yourself disagreeing with a significant percentage.

Despite its age, this is still the primer on strategy. Read this, and then read everything else.

When this book was published for the first time over twenty years ago, it changed the way that people thought about strategy in business, and it gave us what has become a common language for discussing strategic situations. That's why you should consider buying the book. Without an understanding of the terminology that Michael Porter developed originally in Competitive Strategy, you won't be able to follow many of the arguments that other people use when they're talking about the subject.

When you get past that, you need to ask yourself your primary reason for reading any book on strategy. If you're looking for a "how-to" book, one with ideas that you can implement reasonably quickly, this is not the book for you. This is written by a professor and the presentation is academic. That doesn't make the insights any less valuable, but often it makes them harder to unearth.

Here's my recommendation. You should be familiar enough with Porter's basic methods and terminology to recognize and understand them in other books, articles, and discussions. If you don't have that knowledge now, buy this book and develop that understanding.

If you already have a basic knowledge of some of Porter's terminology and concepts, then this book will give you an excellent structural underpinning to take to the other books about strategy. But, if you're looking for something that you can dip into quickly to work on your company's strategic plan, find something a little less dense and academic.

This is one of the foundation books of the modern business education. Yes, it was written over twenty years ago and you cannot take a business course anywhere without the term "Porter's Five Forces" not at least being mentioned. But, really, this book is still completely relevant and should be on every businessperson's bookshelf, front and center.

For a concept that has so much a place in b-school discussions, you might think the book focuses on the 5-forces, but it is only a small part of the book. It outlines the Generic Competitive Strategies (again, a now well known topic), Competitor Analysis (extremely valuable), Market Signals, Competitive Moves, and so much more.

The book is in three parts, General Analytical Techniques, Generic Industry Environments, and Strategic Decisions. There is an appendix on Portfolio Techniques in Competitor Analysis, and a very useful appendix on How to Conduct an Industry Analysis.

I think a lot of times this book is not given as active a place in the pantheon as it deserves because so many books and articles are recycling a lot of what was in this book and most don't add much to the discussion. Honestly, this book is worth referring to over and over and over again. It is a tool or a weapon in your competitive war chest that needs to be kept active and in play.

Competitive Strategy by Michael Porter is an excellent source for providing critical analysis for strategic planning. This book outlines Porter's Five Forces Model in a fabulous, easy to comprehend writing style. However, the one flaw to this book is that it is a little weak in the area of emerging technology. It tended to be a little more vague with its detail then the rest of the book. Overall, it is still an excellent book and I would recommend it to everyone in the business community. (Especially MBA students)

This is Porter's classic work on business strategy, and the bible of the positioning school of strategy. Sure, the field of strategy has progressed significantly over the past two decades, but is "Competitive Strategy" therefore obsolete? Absolutely not! The models are still valid and highly relevant -- they just need to be augmented with additional new economy strategic concepts. To master a subject one must understand it in many different ways, and so every serious strategist must thoroughly digest this work.

As an active Business Consultant I'm often appalled at the lack of regard for the importance of strategy. It's a matter of life and death (at least for your company).

"Vision without action is a daydream. Action without vision is a nightmare." - Japanese proverb


Why read a book on strategy? Quite simply, to be successful. Technology and globalization culminated in ferocious competition for virtually all industries. Since industry forces, like ocean tides, loom large over the success on any individual business, it is wise to carefully study business strategy.

Competitive Strategy is part one of Michael Porter's trilogy, providing a foundation for Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, and The Competitive Advantage of Nations.

Two main themes are Porter's analysis of industries, which captures the complexity of industry competition in five underlying forces and his three generic strategies -- lowest cost, differentiation, and focus. In this book, Porter presents a whole new perspective on how profit is created and divided.

As technology fads and Internet business models come and go, every company must still address the basics of competition as outlined within this book.

The book consists of three parts - General Analytical Techniques, Generic Industry Environments, and Strategic Decisions. In addition, the two appendices - Portfolio Techniques in Competitor Analysis, and How to Conduct an Industry Analysis - should also be mentioned, as they are very useful.

Part I, Porter discusses the structural analysis of industries (with the world-famous five forces), the three generic competitive strategies (overall cost leadership, focus, and differentiation). Also he discusses an excellent framework for competitor analysis, competitive moves, strategy toward buyers and suppliers, structural analysis within industries (strategic groups, strategic mapping, mobility barriers), and industry evolution (life cycle, evolutionary processes).

In Part II, Porter discusses competitive strategy within various generic industry environments, such as fragmented industries (with no real market leader), emerging industries (e-commerce and Internet are excellent examples, although not mentioned in this book as it was written in 1980), mature industries, declining industries, and global industries.

In Part III, Porter discusses strategic decisions which businesses/firms can take, such as vertical integration (forward, backward, partnerships), capacity expansion, and entry into new industries/businesses.

In summary, it is your responsibility, as a business owner or senior manager, to lead your company into the future by identifying and seizing possibilities. Competitive Strategy helps you understand the competitive forces within an industry and the strategic steps a company can take to enhance its competitive position.

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Michael Davis, President - Brencom Strategic Business Consulting

As Adam Smith is to economics and capitalism, Porter is to business strategy within this market system.

This is THE seminal book for defining how businesses compete.

As technology fads and internet business models ("New economy") come and go, every company must still address the basics of competition as outlined within this book. The frameworks within the book outline:
-How to assess the competitive structure of your industry,
-Generic competitive strategies
-Competitor Analysis

-Effects of market signals on competitive behavior
-Competitive moves in response to your strategy
-Competitve strategy in a number of different market environments
-Impact of strategies such as Vertical integration, growth through new products, scale, and M&A
-... much more

You will use this book as a reference, and find it is timeless. It is no wonder the Mr. Porter is widely regarded as the preeminent strategist.

To put this in practice I recommend books on gaming theory.