What Is Strategy by Michael Porter
Assignment 1
Strategy The article I read was, What is Strategy? By Michael Porter. In this article Porter talks about the abilities to set objectives, facilitate resources and the ability to target the right customers. Porter goes onto talk about operational efficiency. He says that operational efficiency is basically preforming similar tasks better than your rivals in the market. He emphases being different than your rival, don’t try to be better and always out do them, be different and unique. Porter stresses that to have a competitive strategy you must be unique. He talks about how Southwest chose their strategy to be a low cost flight service. Southwest chose to stray away from big fancy airports and long flights, they chose to me a short point to point air service that’s main customers would be families and business travelers in need of a low cost flight. He focuses on how Southwest is different that their rivals because most airlines try to fly you anywhere in the world, they focus on comfort and in plane services, while Southwest is a low cost quick turnaround flight service. With strategy Porter stresses that there must be tradeoffs. You cannot be one thing and also be another that is incompatible with each other. Going back to the example of Southwest he states how Continental Airline tried copying Southwest’s strategy by opening Continental Lite which was a quick turnaround low cost version of Southwest. Continental did not make a trade off though they stuck to using travel agencies and long trip flights along with their short low cost trips. This resulted in a miserable failure for the company. Tradeoffs come from three things; a company being inconsistent in image and credibility by switching to some other type of company, second is in the activities themselves to switch your brand it requires an over haul of the company, third is limitations in internal coordination and control.
Finally Porter stresses you must find your fit and your
Strategy The article I read was, What is Strategy? By Michael Porter. In this article Porter talks about the abilities to set objectives, facilitate resources and the ability to target the right customers. Porter goes onto talk about operational efficiency. He says that operational efficiency is basically preforming similar tasks better than your rivals in the market. He emphases being different than your rival, don’t try to be better and always out do them, be different and unique. Porter stresses that to have a competitive strategy you must be unique. He talks about how Southwest chose their strategy to be a low cost flight service. Southwest chose to stray away from big fancy airports and long flights, they chose to me a short point to point air service that’s main customers would be families and business travelers in need of a low cost flight. He focuses on how Southwest is different that their rivals because most airlines try to fly you anywhere in the world, they focus on comfort and in plane services, while Southwest is a low cost quick turnaround flight service. With strategy Porter stresses that there must be tradeoffs. You cannot be one thing and also be another that is incompatible with each other. Going back to the example of Southwest he states how Continental Airline tried copying Southwest’s strategy by opening Continental Lite which was a quick turnaround low cost version of Southwest. Continental did not make a trade off though they stuck to using travel agencies and long trip flights along with their short low cost trips. This resulted in a miserable failure for the company. Tradeoffs come from three things; a company being inconsistent in image and credibility by switching to some other type of company, second is in the activities themselves to switch your brand it requires an over haul of the company, third is limitations in internal coordination and control.
Finally Porter stresses you must find your fit and your
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