Читать книгу Applied Mergers and Acquisitions - Robert F. Bruner - Страница 123

To illustrate the importance of positioning, Porter (1985) described three classic strategies that seemed to yield special competitive advantage:

1 Low-cost leadership. This seeks to create a sustainable cost advantage over competitors and is often seen in industries where the product or service is a commodity. The attainment of this leadership position permeates the firm and is achieved through focusing on cost containment, strict asset management, an annual budgeting process characterized by great scrutiny, tough negotiation of union and raw materials agreements, and low-overhead central office operations. The advantage of this strategy is that the low-cost leader can’t be undersold: This company will always win in a price war. A disadvantage of this strategy is that cost-minimization often requires a commitment to a particular product or process technology; such a commitment sacrifices flexibility. With technological innovation by competitors, this commitment can quickly turn from an advantage to a disadvantage.

2 Differentiation. This seeks to create a sustainable competitive advantage through distinguishing the firm or its products sufficiently to command a higher price and/or a strong customer franchise. It is seen in industries where customer demand is diverse and therefore unable to be satisfied with a commodity product. In pursuing this strategy, one must ask whether the pricing power achieved through differentiation is sufficient to compensate for the investment necessary to achieve it. Differentiation succeeds to the extent that it is hard to imitate and that it generates superior investment returns. Firms pursuing a differentiation strategy will focus on innovation, techniques of market segmentation, brand management, product quality, customer service, and warranties.

3 Focus or specialization. The focuser creates a competitive advantage by finding and dominating a market niche—there, the advantage springs from cost leadership or differentiation. This will be attractive where one can identify a niche of sufficient size to permit profitable and growing operations and where the firm has capabilities sufficient to serve demand. The disadvantage of a focus strategy is that the firm has all its eggs in one basket: Should the niche be successfully penetrated by a competitor, there will be no other market positions with which to mitigate the consequences.

In addition to defining these classic success strategies, Porter’s analysis raises an equally important point: Don’t get stuck in the middle. He argues that it is very difficult to establish a sustainable competitive advantage through hybrids of these approaches. By trying to be all things to all people, hybrids may become nothing to anyone. Skeptics of this point to Wal-Mart and Toyota, firms that successfully pursue cost leadership and the differentiation of products or services. Still, the difficulty of finding successful hybrids may justify them as the exception, rather than the rule.