Porter's generic strategies

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Major thinkers Michael Porter  • Rita Gunther McGrath Bruce Henderson  • Gary Hamel Candace A. Yano  • C. K. Prahalad Jim Collins  • Liddell Hart Carl von Clausewitz  • Sun Tzu Julian Corbett  • Alfred Thayer Mahan J.C. Wylie  • Adrian Slywotzky Sharon Oster  • Chris Zook Henry Mintzberg
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Porter's generic strategies describe how a company pursues competitive advantage across its chosen market scope. There are three/four generic strategies, either lower cost, differentiated, or focus. A company chooses to pursue one of two types of competitive advantage, either via lower costs than its competition or by differentiating itself along dimensions valued by customers to command a higher price. A company also chooses one of two types of scope, either focus (offering its products to selected segments of the market) or industry-wide, offering its product across many market segments. The generic strategy reflects the choices made regarding both the type of competitive advantage and the scope. The concept was described by Michael Porter in 1980.^[1]