5 FORÇAS DE PORTER

For almost two decades, managers have been

learning to play by a new set of rules. Companies

must be flexible to respond rapidly to competitive

and market changes. They must benchmark

continuously to

achieve best practice.

They must

outsource aggressively

to gain efficiencies.

And

they must nurture

a few core competencies in the

race to stay ahead of rivals.

Positioning – once the heart of strategy – is rejected

as too static for today’s dynamic markets and

changing technologies. According to the new dogma,

rivals can quickly copy any market position,

and competitive advantage is, at best, temporary.

But those beliefs are dangerous half-truths, and

they are leading more and more companies down

the path of mutually destructive competition.

True, some barriers to competition are falling as

regulation eases and markets become global. True,

companies have properly invested energy in becoming

leaner and more nimble. In many industries,

however, what some call hypercompetition is a

self-inflicted wound, not the inevitable outcome of

a changing paradigm of competition.

The root of the problem is the failure to distinguish

between operational effectiveness and strategy.

The quest for productivity, quality, and speed

has spawned a remarkable number of management

tools and techniques: total quality management,

benchmarking, time-based competition, outsourcing,

partnering,

reengineering,

change management.

Although

the resulting operational

improvements

have often

been dramatic, many companies have

been frustrated by their inability to

translate those gains into sustainable profitability.

And bit by bit, almost imperceptibly, management

tools have taken the place of strategy. As managers

push to improve on all fronts, they move farther