Positioning School
Originator: Michael Porter
Book: Competitive Strategy (1980)
Idiom: “Nothing but the facts, madam.”
The positioning school emphasizes the importance of strategies themselves without observing the processes alone which are used to produce them. In addition it brings a focus to the actual content of strategies and a prescriptive method of investigation of options. The positioning school is the basis of much research and an entire strategic management industry in the world today.
Michael Porter was able to focus dissatisfaction with the design and planning school process methods upon a need for substantial content of strategy itself which makes it the most dominant school. His research was derived from a concern for industrial organization and military strategies which had never before been focused upon individual firms or business units before. Such militaria includes Sun Tsu’s The Art of War (500 B.C.) and von Clausewitz's On War (1873).
Limits are placed on the usefulness of strategies in the positioning school. Those key factors of competitiveness are related to the economic marketplace relevant to a particular business in areas of strengths easily defended and maintained against competitors. Firms with key competencies in particular products or services can then consolidate their positions and expand from them. Thus a few key strategies are dominant, for example, product differentiation and focused market scopes.
Thus the positioning school matches the most useful strategies with the conditions at the time by using fairly standard analytical models which are considered generic methods overall. Thus useful analysis is based within specific data collection sets relevant to particular circumstances. So while this process of strategy formation continues to run parallel to the design and planning schools in controlled and conscious, deliberate and completely formed strategies there is a great focus on calculation and closely defined generic strategic positioning with an added emphasis on industrial structure which drives strategic structure which drives organizational structure. Here the CEO remains dominantly in control however the planner is reduced to analyst who rather than planning strategy reviews data sets to select optimum generic selection.
Intended Maxims
Originator: Michael Porter
Book: Competitive Strategy (1980)
Idiom: “Nothing but the facts, madam.”
The positioning school emphasizes the importance of strategies themselves without observing the processes alone which are used to produce them. In addition it brings a focus to the actual content of strategies and a prescriptive method of investigation of options. The positioning school is the basis of much research and an entire strategic management industry in the world today.
Michael Porter was able to focus dissatisfaction with the design and planning school process methods upon a need for substantial content of strategy itself which makes it the most dominant school. His research was derived from a concern for industrial organization and military strategies which had never before been focused upon individual firms or business units before. Such militaria includes Sun Tsu’s The Art of War (500 B.C.) and von Clausewitz's On War (1873).
Limits are placed on the usefulness of strategies in the positioning school. Those key factors of competitiveness are related to the economic marketplace relevant to a particular business in areas of strengths easily defended and maintained against competitors. Firms with key competencies in particular products or services can then consolidate their positions and expand from them. Thus a few key strategies are dominant, for example, product differentiation and focused market scopes.
Thus the positioning school matches the most useful strategies with the conditions at the time by using fairly standard analytical models which are considered generic methods overall. Thus useful analysis is based within specific data collection sets relevant to particular circumstances. So while this process of strategy formation continues to run parallel to the design and planning schools in controlled and conscious, deliberate and completely formed strategies there is a great focus on calculation and closely defined generic strategic positioning with an added emphasis on industrial structure which drives strategic structure which drives organizational structure. Here the CEO remains dominantly in control however the planner is reduced to analyst who rather than planning strategy reviews data sets to select optimum generic selection.
Intended Maxims
1. Generic strategies are common and easily identifiable in the marketplace.
2. The context is the economic and competitive marketplace.
3. Analytical calculations allow generic positioning to be strategically chosen.
4. Managers control choices and are fed calculations and data from analysts.
5. Market determines positional strategies ready to be implemented.
Mintzberg, Ahlstrand, Lampel (1998) The Strategy Process, Free Press, New York.
Links
A Strategy Lecture
A Dissertation on Strategy
Small business development and the “learning organisation"
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