What Is Strategy?

by Harvard Business Publishing

The objective of this volume is to help students develop the skills for formulating strategy on the job. It provides an understanding of a firm's operating environment and how to identify, develop, and sustain competitive advantage. Readers will learn how to balance the opportunities and risks associated with dynamic and uncertain changes in industry attractiveness and competitive position. The book should help students not only to develop a mastery of the essential analytical tools so that they can understand the devil in the details but also to integrate perspectives and competing interests, so as to see the big picture. They should be able to use these tools to perform in-depth analyses of industries and competitors, predict competitive behavior, and analyze how firms develop and sustain competitive advantage over time.

Genres: Business

Paperback

First published May 1, 2008

About the author

Harvard Business Publishing (HBP) is a publisher founded in 1994 as a not-for-profit, independent corporation and an affiliate of Harvard Business School (distinct from Harvard University Press), with a focus on improving business management practices. The company offers articles, books, case studies, simulations, videos, learning programs, and digital tools to organizations and subscribers.
HBP consists of three market units: Education, Corporate Learning, and Harvard Business Review Group. Their offering consists of print and digital media (Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business Review Press books, Harvard Business School cases), events, digital learning (Harvard ManageMentor, HMM Spark), blended learning, and campus experiences.

Reviews

[Aron M · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative but a little confusing for me. I’ve got time to learn and come back to re-read

[Sam Motes · Rating 5 out of 5]

Porter was obviously discussed in Kiechell's book "The Lords of Strategy" and Porter's "What is Strategy" article was a key document in that book showing how Porter helped to guide the Strategy discussion later in his career. It is a short read but very dense in content on what strategy is and probably more importantly what it is not to defend off much of the Johnny come lately works out there on Strategy. Key concept in this work was that it isn't strategy unless it defines how you are going to break out of the pack doing some aspect differently then the rest in a defendable way that drives business value. Porter makes the argument that is is better to forge a new market niche even if in a new industry then trying to fight on the slippery slope of the also rans fighting in an un defendable cut throat market.

[Nelson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This paper is at the heart of Bronco Mendenhall's organizational philosophy for BYU football during his tenure (2005-15). A strategy is something that none of your competitors are doing; otherwise they can just copy what you're doing. So you need to have a whole system of differentiated activities that are consistent with each other; that way, someone can copy just one thing, but they can't copy the whole thing.

[Josh Steimle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, but important when it comes to a discussion of business strategy. Foundational.

[Bhargav Ramesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most important article ever in understanding strategy work successfully by Harvard Business Review.