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Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries & Competitors By Michael E Porter The Free Press, New York, 1980, Pages: 397, Price: $25.33 ISBN-10:0684841487; ISBN -13:978-0684841489
Competitive Strategy - Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors aims to provide a comprehensive and structured approach for strategy formulation by inviting readers to look into the profound impact of environmental forces in general, and of competitors in particular, on the success of businesses.
OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK
Competitive Strategy - Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors posits that organizational actions are externally controlled and constrained. Survival of the organization lies in creating a best fit between environment and resources of the organization. Hypothesis supports the idea that environmental factors play decisive role in putting up threats and opportunities for the organizations. In addition, structure of industry and environmental forces keep on evolving, thereby forcing organizations to consistently interact and respond according to the changing environmental conditions. However, organizations do not remain passive in this process, rather they can be proactive to understand and predict changes in industries. Porter, in this book, provides set of tools and techniques to make strategic choices among various options posed by environment.
Porter is of the view that every firm competing in industry holds a competitive strategy. The process of formulation of strategy in an organization takes place in two ways:
* Explicit strategy formulation that is based on the planning process; and
* Implicit strategy formulation that is evolved as an outcome of organization's functional activities.
Porter takes the position that it is always doubtful to have implicit process as source of best strategy; hence, he attributes the explicit process of strategy formulation as a best way of taking maximum benefits for the firm.
FINDING THE COMPETITIVE ENVIRONMENT
The essence of the book is to provide a framework of relating a company to its environment. Framework encompasses a best fit between firm's resources and environment. The book has been written from two dimensions. On one end it highlights importance of understanding industry structure and developing in-lined strategies to deal with it. Another dimension of the book, which is rather more interesting and productive, is to propose frameworks and tools for industry analysis and crafting strategy. The book, thus, successfully asserts philosophical insights and...