Sublime

IN ESSENCE, THE JOB of the strategist is to understand and cope with competition. Often, however, managers define competition too narrowly, as if it occurred only among today’s direct competitors. Yet competition for profits goes beyond established industry rivals to include four other competitive forces as well: customers, suppliers, potential

foundations were laid in Victorian times. Now it is changing radically. Standard economics is suddenly being challenged by a number of new approaches: behavioral economics, neuroeconomics, new institutional economics. One of the new approaches came to life at the Santa Fe Institute: complexity economics.

4. Finally, the executive is within an organization.

pricing would increasingly become a matter of fixed-price…

Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

But once you appreciate the role of fit, you will stop and think much harder about outsourcing. Instead of trying to determine which activities are core, Porter asks a different question: Which activities are generic and which are tailored? Generic activities—those that cannot be meaningfully tailored to a company’s position—can be safely

“All people are entrepreneurs, but many don’t have the opportunity to find that out.”

They began with that strategy from day one: All successful low-price companies focused on low prices and high volumes from the very beginning. In many cases, they created radically new business model

choice of project types influences significantly, as we shall see, the economic and…

Some highlights have been hidden or truncated due to export limits.

To determine how to win, an organization must decide what will enable it to create unique value and sustainably deliver that value to customers in a way that is distinct from the firm’s competitors. Michael Porter called it competitive advantage—the specific way a firm utilizes its advantages to create superior value for a consumer or a customer