Michael Porter Strategy Summary

Michael Porter “What is Strategy?”

Strategy is the creation of a unique and valuable position, entailing a different combination of activities. According to Michael Porter, Strategy means making a deliberate choice of activities so as to deliver a ubiquitous mix of value. He embraces strategy as a plan and the means or policies or at best a position. Porter says a strategy focuses on breaking through barriers, beating competitors by doing what the competitors do, but in a different way or doing different things from competitors. Strategy targets being a better than rival organizations. It does this through the help of operational effectiveness, innovation, proper and efficient decisions, product leadership, cost leadership, cost focus and

The example of Southwest Airlines (SWA) emphasizes that a operational effectiveness is not a strategy, but operational efficiency once applied to a strategy can result to great success. The example shows that a real competitive strategy is ionly about doing things deliberately in a different way so as to come up with a mix of unique values and unique activities. South West Airlines found achance to provide low cost services, standardized flights in the United Styates of America , for a value based, though low cost position in an industry where the competitors have found it difficult to meet the same cost structure. The other airlines cannot up any competition on the chosen activities and value combination. It is only a strategy that has been devised by the Southwest Airline (SWA), and her competitors are not in a position to implement it. This example continues to explain the differences between a strategy and operational effectiveness since SWA have been able to work on their internal processes to break through the costs and stand out in the industry. Though there are elements of operational effectiveness, they are only for assisting the strategy to realize huge returns. The airline has only rested on unique activities to achieve the

The middle level managers highly involved in the implementation stage of the model. The middle level managers are charged with identification of the required resources, and then placing the necessary organizational changes. The middle level managers are actively influence the formulation and the implementation of a strategic process. Thus, middle level mangers fit in the implementation process above the control process. Many organizations employ the role of the middle level managers, in the implementation stage. They are however involved in the formulation stage too to come up with the