Understanding Michael Porter

Michael Porter is considered one of the most important scholars in the field of strategy, and Ms. Magretta's book presents his ideas clearly and concisely. As a professor of strategy who has been teaching Porter's ideas to executives and students for more than 10 years, I enjoyed the book, even though I have read Porter's books and articles themselves. The book can be thought of as a more detailed yet accessible versions of two of his seminal articles, The Five Forces That Shape Competitive Strategy and What is Strategy. If you have not read any of Porter's work before, this book is probably the best vehicle to get introduced to his ideas, and you will gain valuable insights. Even if you have read the above articles however, the book will still be useful, because Ms. Magretta updates the examples, integrates material from other works by Porter and makes the material more accessible without watering it down. The last chapter on Continuity is quite fresh for example. The case study examples have been updated, which was important for me. The discussion of how the desire to grow detracts from strategy is especially insightful and eye-opening. The Q&A with Michael Porter is also unique to this book. Finally, Ms. Magretta presents a list of additional readings case studies for those who are interested in pursuing the material further. In short, there is enough material to satisfy even avid readers of Porter's ideas. One could of course point to some weaknesses as well. The strategy field has advanced quite a lot since Porter's ideas have been presented, and a full understanding of his concepts and views requires relating them to alternative views of strategy. For example, his 1996 article, What is Strategy, was written partly as a defense of his views vis-a-vis some of the alternative views. Furthermore, Porter's ideas are controversial and not universally accepted. Finally, one could argue that examples were picked conveniently to support Porter's views. However, these are more critiques of Professor Porter's views, rather than of the book itself. One word of caution: Porter's ideas are wide-ranging. He has written about diverse topics such as competitive advantage of nations, clusters and global strategy and health care. Those are not in this book. This book focuses on his ideas on the field of business strategy, which is where he made his biggest mark. The book will be most relevant and useful for practicing managers, especially senior managers or those who are part of the strategy formation process in their organizations. However, the general reader can also gain valuable insights. As someone who teaches and studies business strategy, I highly recommend this book.

This is a highly recommended book from many other people and I would have to agree with the favorable reviews. I've not read Porter's books but the style and wisdom this author references sparks the curiosity of strategy training. I understand Porter is not an easy read but the way she explained the concepts was useful, concise and intriguing. I can't wait to get to the other books.

This is the first thing I read about Porter except the very famous HBR articles, from the book I see Porter focusing ONLY on how to generate profit how to create value and how to become more profitable.. The concept of "no Zero-Sum Competition" or -in simple words- do not base your strategy on gaining as much market share as you can, is kind of attractive but then the contradiction comes in the competitive advantage chapter where you are asked to create an advantage over your rivals to grasp as much profit as you can from them!!! Even if I do something completely different than what my rivals do I am still on a zero-sum competition. "when a company runs a fast train between two major cities, it will not increase the number of travelers between those two cities, and it will compete on zero-sum of the number of travelers" Also the fact that Porter's strategies does not involve a thought about people, humanity or social responsibilities is a real evidence that MBA in its old format is a monsters creating program where managers sees people as nothing but resources and those people are either "Direct Cost-labors" that you should cut when demand is down or "Indirect Cost-Staff" that you should cut in crisis. The book itself is very nice, that is why I gave it 4*, its language is very easy and the examples -though copied from HBR cases- are so easy to understand and are so to the point...

Once again Joan Magretta produces a masterful synthesis of complex business ideas (her first being What Management Is). I'm well aware of Michael Porter's contributions to business thinking but I've been hesitant to read his work directly because it seemed so academic and specialized. But in this book, Michael Porter's ideas are laid out logically and explained clearly, with plenty of examples to support the ideas. A major key to understanding Porter is mastering the definitions of key words or phrases, such as "value proposition", "value chain", or even "strategy". Sometimes it's easy to recognize jargon but sometimes not, so you can be easily be confused or led down the wrong path if you're not paying attention closely. Magretta helps by repeating the definitions at key times to reinforce the ideas and ensure you don't get lost (plus there's a handy glossary at the back) and describes how to analyze or implement them step-by-step. It's so well written that I finished in a few days but I did have lots of questions, such as the relationship between business models and strategy or how do his ideas apply to non-profits (the field in which I work) and those were nicely addressed in the closing FAQ interview. If there are any problems, it's in the Kindle edition. The text and diagrams work out better than most Kindle ebooks (although the charts are at their minimum size limit; larger or zoomability would have been nice) but somehow the Kindle version reads the FAQ, Glossary, and Notes all as page 185 (even though it's simultaneously presented as Locations 2452-3092). That may not be a problem for most readers, but if you want cite a quotation from the book for a research paper or report, or want to jump to that section by page rather than location, you're dead in the water. This problem obviously lies with the publisher or Amazon, not the author.

I have read two of Porter's books - Competitive Strategy and Competitive Advantage. And I have also, sort of, understood them - even though I haven't really internalized them for implementing in my company. The reason was that I did not quite get my mind around the concepts in a comprehensive manner as the ideas are in different books and they are not presented as an integrated whole (and, of course, I read them at different times). For the first time, in this book, the concepts are presented in a very accessible manner and connected in a very coherent manner. The books starts (Part 1) with What is Competition - elucidating on the concept of Competition, The Five Forces, and the Value Chain (CA). Part 2 addresses What is Strategy - in which the concepts of Creating Value; Trade-offs; Fit; and Continuity are discussed. The book is wrapped up with A Short List of Implications where in the author summarizes the takeaways and what they mean for us. I am in the midst of developing a strategy for my company. These easy to understand frameworks have been extremely useful. In fact, after reading this book, I decided not to hire a consultant who was charging me an exorbitant sum ($4,000/day!) as I think that this book will be more helpful. I highly recommend this book esp if you are trying to get a good grasp of the concepts of Michael Porter. An absolute gem.

This is a terrific read for any leader who wants to create a clear strategic advantage for his/her business. The author, Joan Magretta, does a very nice of job of crisply distilling the salient themes from the volumes of literature from Michael Porter (the preeminent strategy "guru" from Harvard Business School) and assembling them into an integrated whole. The word "strategy" is one of the most misused terms in business. This is one of the few books that cuts through the all the buzz words, catchy lingo, and management trends to reveal the true nature of strategy and competition. It is well structured, easy to read, and refreshingly clear.

Strategy is something that is conceptually simple, yet misunderstood or misapplied by most business people. And, through Magretta, Michael Porter shows many examples of how companies - even big ones - get it wrong. He makes a strong case against "Bigger is Better", focusing on the merits of profit over market share. What I like about Porter is that it gets away from the buzzwords people use in discussing strategy and focuses on some basic principles. Buzzwords may make someone sound well-read or well-versed on strategy, but Porter's approach shows how devoid these buzzwords are of any depth in strategic thinking. Magretta has distilled Porter's complex thinking down to something that's easy to read and understand. The approach is not to regurgitate, but interpret Porter's principles so more managerial people can put them into practice. I supppose one reason some companies are so successful is that so many competitors don't get it right. Perhaps if more companies adopted Porter, the playing field would become more competitive.

I agree with most all of the other reviewers. If you really want to understand Porter's timeless concepts of Strategy this is the book to read. I have four Michael Porter books on my shelf including Competitive Strategy, Competitive Advantage, The Competitive Advantage of Nation and finally On Competition. I've read all of these over the years and refer back to them periodically. This book provides a very easy to read pointed overview of the important concepts in Porter's first two books. I think I may find myself now referring back to this one. For anyone that is either an MBA student or thinking about going down the MBA path this book would be an excellent supplemental read. This one, in my opinion, is a definite 5 star must have.

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.