michael e porter what is strategy

1、第 1 頁 共 16 頁P(yáng)assage 2What is Strategy?Michael E. PorterHarvard Business Review, NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1996I. Operational Effectiveness Is Not StrategyFor almost two decades, managers have been learning to play by a new set o

2、f rules. Companies must be flexible to respond rapidly to competitive and market changes. They must benchmark continuously to achieve best practice. They must outsource aggressively to gain efficiencies. And they must nu

3、rture a few core competencies in the race to stay ahead of rivals.Positioning–once the heart of strategy–is rejected as too static for today’s dynamic markets and changing technologies. According to the new dogma, rivals

4、 can quickly copy any market position, and competitive advantage is, at best, temporary. But those beliefs are dangerous half-truths, and they are leading more and more companies down the path of mutually destructive com

5、petition. True, some barriers to competition are falling as regulation eases and markets become global. True, companies have properly invested energy in becoming leaner and more nimble. In many industries, however, what

6、some call hypercompetition is a self-inflicted wound, not the inevitable outcome of a changing paradigm of competition.The root of the problem is the failure to distinguish between operational effectiveness and strategy.

7、 The quest for productivity, quality, and speed has spawned a remarkable number of management tools and techniques: total quality management, benchmarking, time-based competition, outsourcing, partnering, reengineering,

8、change manage-the resulting operational improvements have often been dramatic, many companies have been frustrated by their inability to translate those gains into sustainable profitability. And bit by bit, almost imperc

9、eptibly, management tools have taken the place of strategy. As managers push to improve on all fronts, they move farther away from viable competitive positions.Operational Effectiveness: Necessary but Not Sufficient Ope

10、rational effectiveness and strategy are both essential to superior performance, which, after all, is the primary goal of any enterprise. But they work in very different ways. A company can outperform rivals only if it ca

11、n establish a difference that it can preserve. It must deliver greater value to customers or create comparable value at a lower cost, or do both. The arithmetic of superior profitability then follows: delivering greater

12、value allows a company to charge higher average unit prices; greater efficiency results in lower average unit costs.Ultimately, all differences between companies in cost or price derive from the hundreds of activities re

13、quired to create, produce, sell, and deliver their products or services, such as calling on customers, assembling final products, and training employees. Cost is generated by performing activities, and cost advantage ari

14、ses from performing particular activities more efficiently than competitors. Similarly, differentiation arises from both the choice of activities and how they are performed. Activities, then, are the basic units of compe

15、titive advantage. Over-all advantage or disadvantage results from all a company’s activities, not only a few.1Operational effectiveness (OE) means performing similar activities better than rivals perform them. Operationa

16、l effectiveness includes but is not limited to efficiency. It refers to any number of practices that allow a company to better utilize its inputs by, for example, reducing defects in 第 3 頁 共 16 頁Competitors can quickly i

17、mitate management techniques, new technologies, input improvements, and superior ways of meeting customers’ needs. The most generic solutions – those that can be used in multiple settings – diffuse the fastest. Witness t

18、he proliferation of OE techniques accelerated by support from consultants. OE competition shifts the productivity frontier outward, effectively raising the bar for everyone. But although such competition produces absolut

19、e improvement in operational effectiveness, it leads to relative improvement for no one. Consider the$5 billion-plus U.S. commercial-printing industry. The major players – R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, Quebecor, Wor

20、ld Color Press, and Big Flower Press–are competing head to head, serving all types of customers, offering the same array of printing technologies (gravure and web offset), investing heavily in the same new equipment, run

21、ning their presses faster, and reducing crew sizes. But the resulting major productivity gains are being captured by customers and equipment suppliers, not retained in superior profitability. Even industry-leader Donnell

22、ey’s profit margin, consistently higher than 7% in the 1980s, fell to less than 4.6%in 1995. This pattern is playing itself out in industry after industry. Even the Japanese, pioneers of the new competition, suffer from

23、persistently low profits. The second reason that improved operational effectiveness is insufficient – competitive convergence – is more subtle and insidious. The more benchmarking companies do, the more they look alike.

24、The more that rivals outsource activities to efficient third parties, often the same ones, the more generic those activities become. As rivals imitate one another’s improvements in quality, cycle times, or supplier partn

25、erships, strategies converge and competition becomes a series of races down identical paths that no one can win. Competition based on operational effectiveness alone is mutually destructive, leading to wars of attrition

26、that can be arrested only by limiting competition. The recent wave of industry consolidation through mergers makes sense in the context of OE competition. Driven by performance pressures but lacking strategic vision, com

27、pany after company has had no better idea than to buy up its rivals. The competitors left standing are often those that out-lasted others, not companies with real advantage. After a decade of impressive gains in operatio

28、nal effectiveness, many companies are facing diminishing returns. Continuous improvement has been etched on managers’ brains. But its tools unwittingly draw companies toward imitation and homogeneity. Gradually, managers

29、 have let operational effectiveness supplant strategy. The result is zero-sum competition, static or declining prices, and pressures on costs that compromise companies’ ability to invest in the business for the long term

30、.II. Strategy Rests on Unique ActivitiesCompetitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value. Southwest Airlines Company, for exampl

31、e, offers short-haul, low-cost, point-to-point service between midsize cities and secondary airports in large cities. Southwest avoids large airports and does not fly great distances. Its customers include business trave

32、lers, families, and students. Southwest’s frequent departures and low fares attract price-sensitive customers who otherwise would travel by bus or car, and convenience-oriented travelers who would choose a full-service a