A lot of what we know about competitive strategy owes a great deal to the work of Harvard’s Michael Porter. In this post, I am sharing the first HBR article that Porter wrote in 1979 to explain the five forces that shape strategy. Also attached is an updated version of the article that Porter revised […]
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In the last 120 years or so, there have been five distinct movements in the way companies compete. This has been covered extremely well in the attached article by Ken Favaro of the consultancy firm Strategy&. Efficiency. The first movement was efficiency, propounded mainly by Frederick W. Taylor. He wrote The Principles of Scientific Management […]
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The attached article by Professor Roger Martin of Rotman School of Management (who co-authored Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works with P&G’s A. G. Lafley) is a must read. In the article, Professor Martin highlights that there are still only two ways to compete: Cost Leadership. The founder of the Boston Consultancy Group, Bruce […]
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There are brands that manage to build a fanatical following. Think Harley Davidson. Think Harvard Business School. Think Virgin Atlantic Airways. Or think Apple. We all admire these brands for the passionate response that they generate from their users. I am sure all of us would want to elicit a similar response from the consumers […]
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi has launched the ambitious ‘Make in India’ programme to encourage multinational and Indian companies to manufacture in our country. Will the initiative succeed? India has some major advantages – a cheap labour force and a potentially big market. However, a lot will also depend on what India ends up specialising in. […]
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This is a short video in which Al Ries talks about the importance of categories. He argues that people buy into categories, not brands. Brands that own particular categories win. He uses the example of automobile brands to make his crucial point. As a marketer, get your brand to own a word that will help […]
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Let’s face it: we marketers are crazy about market share gains. In every company that I have worked for, one of the primary determinants of success was the gains in market share over a period of time. If our brands were gaining market share, they were doing great; on the other hand, if they were […]
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The attached talk by Scott Galloway at DLD15 is a short 900-second, 90-slide presentation on which amongst the four dominant digital brands – Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google – will lose and win in the next few years. Scott Galloway is a Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern and the founder of L2, a business […]
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There is always a market for the opposite point of view! In fact, if anything fails spectacularly it could well be because it took a position exactly similar to a leader or a strong brand. If a large proportion of people vote for the BJP, a fairly large chunk vote for the Congress as well […]
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Different companies use different strategies to enter a market that has existing competitors. Obviously, all of them think that they are entering the market with a winning strategy that would help them prevail in the marketplace. Yet, as many studies have shown, the success rate of new launches is not very high. Of course, one […]
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