Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1811 in Books
• Published on: 2004-01-19
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Synopsis
Electrifying in its simplicity - like all great breakthroughs - COMPETITIVE STRATEGY captures the complexity of industry competition in five underlying forces. Author Michael Porter introduces one of the most powerful competitive tools yet developed: his three generic strategies - lowest cost, differentiation, and focus - which bring structure to the task of strategic positioning. He shows how competitive advantage can be defined in terms of relative cost and relative prices, thus linking it directly to profitability, and presents a whole new perspective on how profit is created and divided. More than a million managers in both large and small companies, investment analysts, consultants, students, and scholars throughout the world have internalised Porter's ideas and applied them to assess industries, understand competitors and choose competitive positions. COMPETITIVE STRATEGY has filled a void in management thinking. It provides an enduring foundation and grounding point on which all subsequent work can be built. Porter's rich frameworks and deep insights comprise a sophisticated view of competition unsurpassed in the last quarter-century.

Customer Reviews

Beware, this is not a new book
I am very much looking forward to getting stuck into this book, but I personally feel misled by the publication date showing on Amazon and wanted to bring this to the attention of others.

I purchased this book because I was looking for something 'recent' on the topic of strategy. Whilst 2004 is not that recent, I have great respect for M Porter and so was happy that it was recent enough for my purposes.

Unfortunately, upon opening the book, I find that it is a 1980 book on strategy with a 2004 preface.

The content is still good but it kind of defeats the purpose if you are looking for some modern thoughts on and techniques relating to strategy.

Packed With Knowledge!
This seminal book is a classic and ought to be read by anyone in business. Michael E. Porter's ideas on competitiveness have lost little relevance despite the fact that he first advanced them in this book in 1980. They have now become so much a part of business practice and business language that one reads the book more with a sense of recognition than a sense of discovery. His prose style is clear and straightforward, albeit somewhat plodding, and the book can tend to repeat itself. However, Porter's clarity is a welcome change from the murk you encounter in many other books on business strategy, and his repetition serves a useful pedagogical purpose. We highly recommend this excellent book. If you're in business, it's relevant.

Figure out why you buy before you buy
This is emphatically not a work of strategy and and not a book about strategic analysis. I can't see how this would be practical or useful in a real "hands-on" business environment, although i can see how the more shallow CEOs may pick up on its buzzwords. Strictly speaking, this is a work of applied classical economics and as such has rigour and intellectual clarity, though some presuppositions seem a bit dodgy and some of the results aren't extended far enough. Recommended for business studies/MBA students.