A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a vision. Strategy is all about gaining (or being prepared to gain)a position of advantage over adversaries or best exploiting emerging possibilities. As there is always an element of uncertainty about future, strategy is more about a set of options ("strategic choices") than a fixed plan. It derives from the Greek "στρατηγία" (strategia), "office of general, command, generalship".^[1]

Military strategy[link]

Strategies in game theory[link]

In game theory, a strategy refers to one of the options that a player can choose. That is, every player in a non-cooperative game has a set of possible strategies, and must choose one of the choices.

A strategy must specify what action will happen in each contingent state of the game—e.g. if the opponent does A, then take action B, whereas if the opponent does C, take action D.

Strategies in game theory may be random (mixed) or deterministic (pure). That is, in some games, players choose mixed strategies. Pure strategies can be thought of as a special case of mixed strategies, in which only probabilities 0 or 1 are assigned to actions.

Strategy based games all have a similar objective where the player thinks through a sequence of solutions to determine the preferred favorite in order to defeat the opponent. Chess is a common strategy game played throughout the world.

See also[link]

• Odds algorithm (Odds strategy)           
• Strategic planning

References[link]

Look up strategy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Michael Eugene Porter
Born	(1947-05-23) May 23, 1947 (age 65) Ann Arbor, Michigan
Occupation	Author, Management Consultant

Michael Eugene Porter (born May 23, 1947)^[1] is the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School. He is a leading authority on company strategy and the competitiveness of nations and regions. Michael Porter’s work is recognized in many governments, corporations and academic circles globally. He chairs Harvard Business School's program dedicated for newly appointed CEOs of very large corporations.

Early life[link]

Michael Eugene Porter received a B.S.E. with high honors in aerospace and mechanical engineering from Princeton University in 1969, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and Tau Beta Pi. He received an M.B.A. with high distinction in 1971 from the Harvard Business School, where he was a George F. Baker Scholar, and a Ph.D. in Business Economics from Harvard University in 1973.

Porter was an outstanding intercollegiate golfer while at Princeton.

Career[link]

Michael Porter is the author of 18 books and numerous articles including Competitive Strategy, Competitive Advantage, Competitive Advantage of Nations, and On Competition. A six-time winner of the McKinsey Award for the best Harvard Business Review article of the year, Professor Porter is the most cited author in business and economics.^[2]

Michael Porter’s core field is competition and company strategy. He is generally recognized as the father of the modern strategy field, and his ideas are taught in virtually every business school in the world. His work has also re-defined thinking about competitiveness, economic development, economically distressed urban communities, environmental policy, and the role of corporations in society.

Recently, Porter has devoted considerable attention to understanding and addressing the pressing problems in health care delivery in the United States and other countries. His book, Redefining Health Care (written with Elizabeth Teisberg), develops a new strategic framework for transforming the value delivered by the health care system, with implications for providers, health plans, employers, and government, among other actors. The book received the James A. Hamilton award of the American College of Healthcare Executives in 2007 for book of the year. His New England Journal of Medicine research article, “A Strategy for Health Care Reform—Toward a Value-Based System” (June 2009), lays out a health reform strategy for the U.S. His work on health care is being extended to address the problems of health care delivery in developing countries, in collaboration with Dr. Jim Yong Kim and the Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health.

In addition to his research, writing, and teaching, Porter serves as an advisor to business, government, and the social sector. He has served as strategy advisor to numerous leading U.S. and international companies, including Caterpillar, Procter & Gamble, Scotts Miracle-Gro, Royal Dutch Shell, and Taiwan Semiconductor. Professor Porter serves on two public boards of directors, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Parametric Technology Corporation. Professor Porter also plays an active role in U.S. economic policy with the Executive Branch and Congress, and has led national economic strategy programs in numerous countries. He is currently working with the Presidents of Rwanda and South Korea.

Michael Porter has founded three major non-profit organizations: Initiative for a Competitive Inner City - ICIC^[3] in 1994, which addresses economic development in distressed urban communities; the Center for Effective Philanthropy, which creates rigorous tools for measuring foundation effectiveness; and FSG-Social Impact Advisors, a leading non-profit strategy firm serving NGOs, corporations, and foundations in the area of creating social value. He also currently serves on the Board of Trustees of Princeton University.

In 2000, Michael Porter was appointed a Harvard University Professor, the highest professional recognition that can be awarded to a Harvard faculty member.

Michael Porter is one of the founders of The Monitor Group, a strategy consulting firm that came under scrutiny in 2011 for its past contracts with the Muammar Gaddafi-led regime in Libya and alleged failure to register its activities under the Foreign Agents Registration Act.^[4] He is a Senior Partner and Academic Director.

In 2009, he was awarded an honorary degree from McGill University.

His main academic objectives focus on how a firm or a region can build a competitive advantage and develop competitive strategy. He is also a Fellow Member of the Strategic Management Society. One of his most significant contributions is the five forces. Porter's strategic system consists primarily of:

• Competitive advantage
• Porter five forces analysis
• strategic groups (also called strategic sets)
• the value chain
• the generic strategies of cost leadership, product differentiation, and focus
• the market positioning strategies of variety based, needs based, and access based market positions
• global strategy
• Porter's clusters of competence for regional economic development
• Diamond model
• Porter's four corners model

Works[link]

Competitive Strategy

• Porter, M.E. (1979) "How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy", Harvard Business Review, March/April 1979.
• Porter, M.E. (1980) Competitive Strategy, Free Press, New York, 1980. The book was voted the ninth most influential management book of the 20th century in a poll of the Fellows of the Academy of Management.^[5]
• Porter, M.E. (1985) Competitive Advantage, Free Press, New York, 1985.
• Porter, M.E. (ed.) (1986) Competition in Global Industries, Harvard Business School Press, Boston, 1986.
• Porter, M.E. (1987) "From Competitive Advantage to Corporate Strategy", Harvard Business Review, May/June 1987, pp 43–59.
• Porter, M.E. (1996) "What is Strategy", Harvard Business Review, Nov/Dec 1996.
• Porter, M.E. (1998) On Competition, Boston: Harvard Business School, 1998.
• Porter, M.E. (1990, 1998) "The Competitive Advantage of Nations", Free Press, New York, 1990.
• Porter, M.E. (1991) "Towards a Dynamic Theory of Strategy", Strategic Management Journal, 12 (Winter Special Issue), pp. 95–117.
• McGahan, A.M. & Porter, M.E. Porter. (1997) "How Much Does Industry Matter, Really?" Strategic Management Journal, 18 (Summer Special Issue), pp. 15–30.
• Porter, M.E. (2001) "Strategy and the Internet", Harvard Business Review, March 2001, pp. 62–78.
• Porter, M.E. & Kramer, M.R. (2006) "Strategy and Society: The Link Between Competitive Advantage and Corporate Social Responsibility", Harvard Business Review, December 2006, pp. 78–92.
• Porter, M.E. (2008) "The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy", Harvard Business Review, January 2008, pp. 79–93.

Domestic Health Care

• Porter, M.E. & Teisberg, E.O. (2006) "Redefining Health Care: Creating Value-Based Competition On Results", Harvard Business School Press, 2006.
• Berwick, DM, Jain SH, and Porter ME. "Clinical Registries: The Opportunity For The Nation." Health Affairs Blogs, May 2011.

Global Health Care

• Jain SH, Weintraub R, Rhatigan J, Porter ME, Kim JY. "Delivering Global Health". Student British Medical Journal 2008; 16:27.[1]
• Kim JY, Rhatigan J, Jain SH, Weintraub R, Porter ME. "From a declaration of values to the creation of value in global health: a report from Harvard University's Global Health Delivery Project". Global Public Health. 2010 Mar; 5(2):181-8.
• Rhatigan, Joseph, Sachin H Jain, Joia S. Mukherjee, and Michael E. Porter. "Applying the Care Delivery Value Chain: HIV/AIDS Care in Resource Poor Settings." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 09-093, February 2009.

Criticisms[link]

Porter has been criticized by some academics for inconsistent logical argument in his assertions.^[6] Critics have also labeled Porter's conclusions as lacking in empirical support and as justified with selective case studies.^{[7][8][9][10]}

See also[link]

• Cluster development
• Competitive advantage
• Marketing strategies
• National Diamond
• Porter 5 forces analysis
• Strategic planning
• Strategic management
• Techno cluster

References[link]