Marketing
Professor Michael E. Porter Harvard Business School
COMPETITIVE STRATEGY AND REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT
REMARKS TO THE 1989 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL REAL ESTATE SYMPOSIUM1 The real estate industry is an industry in which many of you will have to make some choices about how you will compete in the future. Past modes of behavior probably will not carry you through the next decade. The questions are how do you think about the question of strategy for your business and how do you do that in a constructive way. In looking at any industry, whether it is real estate or whether it is making widgets, there are two basic questions that each of you has to answer if you are going to develop an effective strategy. The first question has to do with what’s going on in the industry itself. Industries differ dramatically in their profit potential and their profit potential changes over time. You have to understand this because there is something about the game in which you are playing that is going to determine how successful you are going to be. There are some games that are good to play in and some games that are not good games to play in. When I talk about the word industry, there is going to be a tendency for the people in this room to think of real estate. But that’s not what I mean. Real estate isn’t an industry. It’s a whole sector of the economy. It is composed of many distinct businesses, each of which is an industry. So developing shopping malls, putting up prime downtown commercial space, and brokerage are all industries. Each of these industries has a different economic logic. Each of them is different in terms of its fundamental attractiveness. You’ve got to understand how attractive the industries are in which you are competing and you have to understand how they are likely to change over time. Hopefully, your job is not only to compete in a way that is going to improve your position but also that will make your industry better. The second basic question in strategy
COMPETITIVE STRATEGY AND REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT
REMARKS TO THE 1989 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL REAL ESTATE SYMPOSIUM1 The real estate industry is an industry in which many of you will have to make some choices about how you will compete in the future. Past modes of behavior probably will not carry you through the next decade. The questions are how do you think about the question of strategy for your business and how do you do that in a constructive way. In looking at any industry, whether it is real estate or whether it is making widgets, there are two basic questions that each of you has to answer if you are going to develop an effective strategy. The first question has to do with what’s going on in the industry itself. Industries differ dramatically in their profit potential and their profit potential changes over time. You have to understand this because there is something about the game in which you are playing that is going to determine how successful you are going to be. There are some games that are good to play in and some games that are not good games to play in. When I talk about the word industry, there is going to be a tendency for the people in this room to think of real estate. But that’s not what I mean. Real estate isn’t an industry. It’s a whole sector of the economy. It is composed of many distinct businesses, each of which is an industry. So developing shopping malls, putting up prime downtown commercial space, and brokerage are all industries. Each of these industries has a different economic logic. Each of them is different in terms of its fundamental attractiveness. You’ve got to understand how attractive the industries are in which you are competing and you have to understand how they are likely to change over time. Hopefully, your job is not only to compete in a way that is going to improve your position but also that will make your industry better. The second basic question in strategy