Understanding Michael Porter: The Essential Guide to Competition and Strategy

This book provides a thoughtful summary of much of Porter's work. It describes and evidences what he meant, and didn't mean. Key contributions include the review of the five forces model, and Porter's five criteria for good strategy. There is also a transcript of an interview in which Porter reflection his own work and answers questions on how it should be applied in different circumstances. The book concludes with a useful glossary of some of the key terms and concepts underpinning Porter's work.

Great book with insight outside the theory Gives a great model of business analysis to pirterscire text.

Michael Porter shook up the world of strategy and big business with two books - Competitive Strategy in 1980 and Competitive Advantage in 1985. Since then, he has become the established view and other experts have tried to make their names by misrepresenting his work and arguing against these misrepresentations. What's covered in the book will be taught in every business school and it certainly was in my MBA studies although, by then, I'd read the original books. He fought back against his critics with a famous article in the Harvard Business Review called "What is Strategy" and also updated his five forces commentary in another article. This book summarises his main ideas in a very easy to read format that avoids much of the detail that made the original books a chore for all but the most interested or dedicated. It helps to answer the big question of why consistent profit performance varies across industries and within industries. His five forces model explains how some industries find their profits competed away by companies they buy from or sell to, by substitute products that achieve the same goals, by new entrants who appear at the first sign of excess profits or by competitive rivalry that forces down prices and forces up costs to serve. His work on competitive advantage through the value chain analyses how firms can achieve cost advantages or differentiation so that profitability between companies within an industry varies from the strongest to the weakest. These are explained in the book along with the latest ideas on differentiation and positioning that come from the "What Is Strategy article. It also includes a 20 plus page interview between the author and Michael Porter. There is no substitute for going back to his original works that still stand up remarkably well except for outdated examples. However those books are demanding to read and this makes the ideas much more approachable. It's an excellent summary for an MBA student or a senior manager in a good sized business who gets involved in strategic planning sessions. It's also a good refresher for anyone who has formally studied strategy. I'm less ready to endorse it for entrepreneurs and small business owners. If that's you, then I think you need both a wider context and a deeper understanding of what's involved in finding a niche and differentiating the business from competitors. One option is to go and hire an expert but I'd like to be able to point you towards a book first so that you can properly engage in any debate. At the moment, I can't think of one which is frustrating. About my book reviews - I aim to be a tough reviewer because the main cost of a book is not the money to buy it but the time needed to read it and absorb the key messages. 4 stars means this is a good to very good book. Paul Simister, a business coach who helps business owners who are stuck, get unstuck.

For those who are new to business, strategy and competition, jumping to read Porter's own work can be daunting. This book is highly recommended before you start reading On Competition, Competitiveness of Nation etc. It's a really good and helpful book. Thank you Joan!

Great outline of Michael Porters work... It hits the main points and does not go into too much detail so if you're new to the subject, this is a great starting point

I needed this for my UNI work and this book has been so helpful.

Easy to understand,to the point and current,Informative and insightful with real world elaborations of theoretical/abstract concepts.Not enough though,I think, but really good

Great product well worth it

Used book without major damage. Took unexpectedly longer time to reach. But I could wait. Thanks.

Reminds you that core concepts have no expiry date on their relevance. Reading it after many years post business school is a great refresher.

comentarios típicos y mucho bla bla bla. No lo recomendaría leer

This is an introduction to the concepts taught by Michael Porter, and succeeds in that mission perfectly. Written with simple elegance, it conveys important concepts very clearly and thoroughly. The author provides a lot of meat in a slender volume, using Porter's teachings to lay out exactly what a strategy should be and must do for a company. What is a strategy, what real competitive advantage means, and how a strategy must be flexible while staying consistent with the best of the firm's existing (and unique) ways of doing things. Sometimes when I read a book I'll dog-ear a page or two that I find important. In this case there was simply way too much content that I'd have to return to again: I wound up reading the thing with a highlighter in hand. I've now lent it to a colleague at the office, and am using the concepts in this book as a guide in studying the "five forces" surrounding the startup I'm working for, and hopefully deriving a strategy that meets the objectives laid out by Porter.

A great and relatively thin book to summarise all the great thinking in the 1980s Porter books - simple and direct, each chapter provides great half page points to copy and circulate. Too many owners of Competitive Strategy remind me that I know only one other person who has read all this book and The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money as well. Porter's logic just works, this book is easy to absorb, get a copy and start doing strategy properly, it is that simple.