Competitive Strategy

A company earns returns above its cost of capital only when it holds something rivals would have to replicate to match it: scale in a defined market, customer switching costs, a network effect, a cost position, or a brand people pay more for. Strategy is therefore a choice of where to compete and what to decline, and reading this literature teaches you to name a firm's advantage precisely and test whether it survives a determined entrant. Porter supplies the analytical frame of five forces and the value chain, Rumelt insists on a diagnosis before a policy, Helmer reduces advantage to seven types, Greenwald argues that barriers to entry are the only durable source, and Kim and Mauborgne make the case for creating demand instead of fighting for it. Chandler and Kiechel supply the history: how corporate structure followed strategy, and how the consulting firms turned these ideas into a business.

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