Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance by Michael E. Porter

Product Description

The essential complement to the pathbreaking book Competitive Strategy, Michael E. Porter's Competitive Advantage explores the underpinnings of competitive advantage in the individual firm. With over 30 printings in English and translated into thirteen languages, this second volume in Porter's landmark trilogy describes how a firm actually gains an advantage over its rivals. Competitive Advantage introduces a whole new way of understanding what a firm does. Porter's groundbreaking concept of the value chain disaggregates a company into "activities," or the discrete functions or processes that represent the elemental building blocks of competitive advantage.

Now an essential part of international business thinking, Competitive Advantage takes strategy from broad vision to an internally consistent configuration of activities. Its powerful framework provides the tools to understand the drivers of cost and a company's relative cost position. Porter's value chain enables managers to isolate the underlying sources of buyer value that will command a premium price, and the reasons why one product or service substitutes for another. He shows how competitive advantage lies not only in activities themselves but in the way activities relate to each other, to supplier activities, and to customer activities. Competitive Advantage also provides for the first time the tools to strategically segment an industry and rigorously assess the competitive logic of diversification.

That the phrases "competitive advantage" and "sustainable competitive advantage" have become commonplace is testimony to the power of Porter's ideas. Competitive Advantage has guided countless companies, business school students, and scholars in understanding the roots of competition. Porter's work captures the extraordinary complexity of competition in a way that makes strategy both concrete and actionable.

Product Details
Amazon Sales Rank: #8279 in Books
Published on: 1998-06-01
Number of items: 1
Binding: Hardcover
592 pages
Editorial Reviews

Review
Financial Times

The most influential management book of the past quarter century....A veritable goldmine of analytical concepts and tools to help companies get a much clearer grasp of how they can create and sustain competitive advantage.



Philip Kotler

S.C. Johnson & Son, Distinguished Professor of International Marketing, Northwestern University

Michael Porter has done it again. Having defined the 'what' and 'why' of competitive strategy in his earlier book, he now defines the 'how' in

Competitive Advantage.



Newsday

A sharp, aggressive and cogently reasoned book about competition that

your smarter rivals will try to get to first.



The Washington Post

A brilliant structural analysis of what competitive advantage might

mean....



Antitrust Law & Economics Review

A superb guide for business managers but also necessary background study for judges, antitrust agency officials, and economic experts in antitrust cases.


Review
Antitrust Law & Economics Review A superb guide for business managers but also necessary background study for judges, antitrust agency officials, and economic experts in antitrust cases.

About the Author
Michael E. Porter, one of the world's leading authorities on competitive strategy and international competitiveness, is the C. Roland Christensen Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. In 1983, Professor Porter was appointed to President Reagan's Commission on Industrial Competitiveness, the initiative that triggered the competitiveness debate in America. He serves as an advisor to heads of state, governors, mayors, and CEOs throughout the world. The recipient of the Wells Prize in Economics, the Adam Smith Award, three McKinsey Awards, and honorary doctorates from the Stockholm School of Economics and six other universities, Porter is the author of fourteen books, among them Competitive Strategy, The Competitive Advantage of Nations, and Cases in Competitive Strategy, all published by The Free Press. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Customer Reviews

Strategy Bible
The Porter trilogy: Best books on strategy ever written. The reference manual for competitive strategy. Anybody who is in the business of formulating strategy today uses the Porter framework. The only caveat is the distrupting force of the internet and its effects on businesses which is not covered. Jim Kayalar is a Certified Management Consultant with the Institute of Management Consultants USA (IMC-USA) with 20 plus years of experience in a myriad of industries. Jim Kayalar is the managing director and founder of Business Tune Up.

Mr.
I understand what companies have to do about the creation and sostenibility of competitive advantege by this book.

Using IT for Competitive Advantage
In his 1985 book titled Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance Free Press 1985 Management and IT (information Technology) author Michael Porter set fourth some very useful ideas about creating competitive advantage with IT (e.g. building a strategically valuable system.) I've added an example or two after each of his points. They include:

(1) Building barriers to Entry (Microsoft Windows loaded on every new PC)
(2) Enhancing loyalty (American Hospital Supply on-line ordering)
(3) Favorably altering the balance of power with suppliers (American Airlines AAdvantage frequent flyer program)
(4) Changing the basis of competition within an industry (Federal Express hub & spoke delivery)
(5) Developing entirely new products (Finance and Insurance industries)

I believe this is very powerful stuff when thinking about the value of a new system proposal and in particular the inevitable 'build vs. buy decision'. It's also relevant to starting a new business and trying to find an approach that makes it unique!

A very timely book even after 20+ years!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
If you found this review interesting or useful would you vote [YES] at right. We're trying to build a reputation at Amazon one-person-at-a-time, and we'd like your help to do it! THANK YOU!