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Management Theories

Porter's Generic Strategies

Strategic Planning and Performance Management Frameworks

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Porter's generic strategies are a set of three broad approaches, described by Michael Porter, that a company can pursue to achieve competitive advantage within an industry: cost leadership, differentiation, and focus, with focus itself divided into a cost-focus and a differentiation-focus variant. Porter argued that a firm which fails to commit clearly to one of these strategies risks becoming stuck in the middle, unable to compete on either the basis of low cost or of meaningful differentiation. The framework has been widely taught in business strategy as a way of clarifying the basic choices available to a firm competing in a given market.

Facts
Core Claim
A company pursues competitive advantage in its chosen market scope through one of three generic strategies: cost leadership, product differentiation, or focus. 1
Origin Year
1980 1
Cross-Tradition Connections

Associated With

Blue Ocean Strategy is positioned by its authors as an alternative to Porter's competition-based generic strategies.

Both frameworks were developed by Michael Porter as complementary tools for competitive strategy analysis.

Value Chain Analysis is used to identify the activities through which a firm pursues one of Porter's generic strategies.

Developed By

Sources
1. Wikipedia, Porter's Generic Strategies
WikipediaWikipedia, Porter's generic strategies lead section
Quote, Wikipedia, Porter's generic strategies lead section
The concept was described by Michael Porter in 1980.
View the Source
1. Wikipedia, Porter's Generic Strategies
WikipediaDeveloped By: Michael PorterView the Source
1. Wikipedia, Porter's Generic Strategies
WikipediaAssociated With: Value Chain AnalysisView the Source
Wikipedia, Porter's Five Forces
WikipediaAssociated With: Porter's Five ForcesView the Source
Wikipedia, Blue Ocean Strategy
WikipediaAssociated With: Blue Ocean StrategyView the Source
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