“A firm may achieve differentiation, yet this differentiation will usually sustain only so much of a price differential. Thus if a differentiated firm gets too far behind in cost due to technological change or simply inattention, the low cost firm may be in a position to make major inroads. “
“Approaches to differentiating can take many forms: design or brand image, technology, features, customer service, dealer network, or other dimensions.”
“Businesses with high relative share in low-growth markets will produce healthy cash flow, which can be used to fund other, developing businesses.”
“Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value.”
“Consistency ensures that the competitive advantages of activities cumulate and do not erode or cancel themselves out.“
“Consumers tend to be more price sensitive if they are purchasing products that are undifferentiated, expensive relative to their incomes, or of a sort where quality is not particularly important to them.”
“Fit is important because discrete activities often affect one another. A sophisticated sales force, for example, confers a greater advantage when the company’s product embodies premium technology and its marketing approach emphasizes customer assistance and support.”
“General management is more than the stewardship of individual functions. Its core is strategy: defining and communicating the company’s unique position, making trade-offs, and forging fit among activities.”
“It is the threat of entry, not whether entry actually occurs, that holds down profitability.“
“Managers must clearly distinguish operational effectiveness from strategy.”
“One of the essential tasks in industry analysis is to distinguish temporary or cyclical changes from structural changes.“
“Operational effectiveness and strategy are both essential to superior performance, which, after all, is the primary goal of any enterprise… A company can outperform rivals only if it can establish a difference that it can preserve. It must deliver greater value to customers or create comparable value at a lower cost, or do both. The arithmetic of superior profitability then follows: delivering greater value allows a company to charge higher average unit prices; greater efficiency results in lower average unit costs.“
“Strategic positioning attempts to achieve sustainable competitive advantage by preserving what is distinctive about a company. It means performing different activities from rivals, or performing similar activities in different ways.”
“Strategy is about making choices; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different.”
“Strategy is making trade-offs in competing. The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.”
“Strategy is the creation of a unique and valuable position, involving a different set of activities.”
“The Five Forces Framework to determine the state of a targeted competitive environment encompasses the Threat of New Entry, the Bargaining Power of Buyers, the Threat of Substitution, the Bargaining Power of Suppliers, and the Rivalry Among Existing Competitors. “
“The myriad activities that go into creating, producing, selling, and delivering a product or service are the basic units of competitive advantage.”
“The point of industry analysis is not to declare the industry attractive or unattractive but to understand the underpinnings of competition and the root causes of profitability.“
“Understanding the competitive forces, and their underlying causes, reveals the roots of an industry’s current profitability while providing a framework for anticipating and influencing competition and profitability over time.”
“Within most well-established companies is a core of uniqueness. It is identified by answering questions such as the following: Which of our product or service varieties are the most distinctive? Which of our product or service varieties are the most profitable? Which of our customers are the most satisfied? Which customers, channels, or purchase occasions are the most profitable? Which of the activities in our value chain are the most different and effective?”
“Without an industry leader, practices desirable for the industry as a whole go unenforced.“