1. Análisis
According to Michael E. Porter in the article titled “What is Strategy”, which was published by the Harvard Business Review in their November-December 1996 edition, there are four crucial elements that allow us to clearly define the term strategy in today’s professional atmosphere. First of all, companies often confuse strategy when employing basic formulas of operational effectiveness. Even though they continuously chase increased productivity, quality and overall speed, which consequently results in an endless list of management tools, such as benchmarking, total quality management and outsourcing, the reality of the matter is that these operational tools only signify that they are performing similar activities better than the immediate competition performs them. Moreover, these efforts do not necessarily translate to increased returns. In fact, the movements towards productivity gains only result in an overall industry effectiveness, which in turn benefits the ultimate customer, not the actual company. Therefore, for a company to truly excel, instead of losing that temporary advantage quickly to the imitation of their competitor, it must go beyond operational effectiveness, since it has proven insufficient in today’s competitive world.
Furthermore, the second element Porter refers to is that strategy rests on unique activities. In other words, it means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value. While describing several examples, the author emphasizes that positioning can be based on three different ways. First, it can be achieved through customer’s needs (such as Bessemer or Citibank), or it can be achieved through customer’s accessibility (such as Carmike), or it can ...