Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: CREATING AND   SUSTAINING SUPERIOR PERFORMANCE
Michael Porter
Contents
Introduction

Chapter 1: Competitive Strategy: The Core Concepts 3
The Structural Analysis of Industries 4
Industry Structure and Buyer Needs 6
Generic Competitive Strategies 7
Cost Leadership 8
Differentiation 9
Focus 9
Stuck In The Middle 10
Sustainability 12
RISKS OF COST LEADERSHIP 12
RISKS 12
OF DIFFERENTIATION 12
RISKS 12
OF 12
FOCUS 12
Generic Strategies and Industry Evolution 13
Generic Strategies and Organizational Structure 14
Generic Strategies and Strategic Planning Process 14
Chapter 2: The Value Chain and Competitive Advantage 15
The Value Chain 15
Identifying Value Activities 16
The value Chain and Organizational Structure 22
CHAPTER 3: Cost Advantage (p. 62) 22
Section 1: The Value Chain and Costs Analysis (p.64) 22
Section 2:   Cost Behavior (p. 70) 24
Section 3:   Cost Advantage (p. 97) 30
Chapter 4: Differentiation (p.119) 38
Section 1: Sources of Differentiation 38
Section 2: The cost of differentiation (p.127) 41
Section 3: Buyer value and differentiation 42
Section 4: Differentiation strategy 46
Section 5: The steps in differentiation (p. 162) 50
Chapter 5: Technology and Competitive Advantage (p.165) 51
Section 1: Technology and Competition 51
Section 2: Technology Strategy 54
Section 3: Technology Evolution 58
Section 4: Formulating Technological Strategy 60
Chapter 6: Competitor Selection 61
Section 1: THE STRATEGIC BENEFITS OF COMPETITORS 61
Section 2: What Makes a “Good” Competitor? 64
“Good” Market Leaders 65
Section 3: Influencing the Pattern of Competitors 65
Section 4:   The Optimal Market Configuration 66
Section 5: Pitfalls In Competitor selection 68
Part II Competitive Scope within an Industry (p. 230) 69
Chapter7: Industry Segmentation and Competitive Advantage 69
Section 1: Bases For Industry Segmentation 69
Section 2: The Industry... [continues]

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