Michael Porter - Estratégia
Estratégia não é ser o melhor
- A maioria das empresas tenta ser a "melhor" no setor, mas isso leva a uma competição de soma zero, onde todos fazem a mesma coisa.
- Não existe “a melhor empresa”. O foco deve ser ser única, entregando valor específico para um público-alvo claro.
Estratégia não é objetivo, missão nem ação
- Objetivo (ex: ser nº1) não é estratégia. É o destino.
- Missão/visão são declarações motivacionais. Estratégia é concreta, baseada em escolhas reais.
- Ações (ex: internacionalizar) também não são estratégia. São meios, não o posicionamento em si.
Dois pilares centrais: estrutura da indústria e posicionamento
Estrutura da indústria (modelo das Cinco Forças)
- Lucro médio depende da atratividade da indústria:
- Poder de barganha de clientes
- Poder dos fornecedores
- Ameaça de substitutos
- Ameaça de novos entrantes
- Intensidade da rivalidade
- Ex: companhias aéreas são estruturalmente ruins, software é estruturalmente bom.
Posicionamento na indústria
- Duas formas de ser mais lucrativo:
- Diferenciação: cobrar mais por algo valioso.
- Liderança em custos: entregar o mesmo com custo menor.
- Tudo deriva de como a empresa configura sua cadeia de valor.
Cadeia de valor
- Conjunto de atividades que a empresa realiza para entregar valor.
- Ex: design, produção, marketing, pós-venda.
- Vantagens competitivas surgem dessas escolhas específicas, não de forças gerais (como SWOT).
Operacional vs Estratégico
- Eficiência operacional = fazer o mesmo melhor (best practices).
- Posicionamento estratégico = fazer escolhas para ser diferente.
- Sem eficiência operacional, estratégia não funciona. Mas só ela não gera vantagem sustentável.
Cinco atributos de uma boa estratégia
1. Proposta de valor única
- Responde a:
- Quais clientes vamos servir?
- Quais necessidades vamos atender?
- Qual o modelo de preço?
- Deve ser diferente dos concorrentes.
- Ex: IKEA serve quem quer design e preço baixo, com alta eficiência operacional.
2. Cadeia de valor distinta
- Precisa executar o modelo de forma diferente.
- Ex: IKEA faz o cliente montar o móvel, loja com pouca assistência, tudo para viabilizar o baixo custo com design.
3. Trade-offs
- Escolher servir bem alguns implica deliberadamente não servir outros.
- Parte da estratégia é dizer “não”.
- Tentar agradar todos leva à mediocridade.
4. Encaixe (fit)
- Atividades se reforçam mutuamente.
- Estratégias sólidas são difíceis de copiar porque envolvem um sistema coerente, não uma prática isolada.
5. Continuidade
- Estratégia exige persistência ao longo do tempo.
- Mudar constantemente de direção gera confusão e mediocridade.
- Mudanças devem focar em melhorar a execução da estratégia, não a estratégia em si.
Estratégia em organizações sem fins lucrativos
- Fundos não são o cliente. É preciso identificar quem é o verdadeiro beneficiário e entregar valor claro.
- Ex: em museus, o valor pode estar em educação, preservação, entretenimento. Isso precisa ser definido e medido.
- Problemas comuns: seguir o que o financiador quer, falta de clareza de objetivo, fragmentação de iniciativas.
Papel da liderança
- Estratégia é responsabilidade do líder.
- Cabe ao líder:
- Definir a direção.
- Comunicar com clareza.
- Alinhar a organização.
- Dizer “não” a distrações.
- Estratégia deve ser compreendida e refletida por todas as áreas, inclusive por quem não é de front office.
Considerações finais
- Empresas de sucesso evitam a convergência estratégica. Buscam ser claramente diferentes.
- Estratégia é um ato de liderança, clareza e comprometimento.
- Uma organização com estratégia clara gera energia, motivação e senso de propósito.
Transcrição
Thank you Holden and Buck — I don’t see Buck, but thank you Buck — for inviting me. I wish I could be there. I love it at UNC, and I’ve been there many times. I'm sorry I can’t be there now because of other duties, but it’s a privilege to participate in this course. It’s very innovative, and we’re impressed with what you're doing. We wish we had something similar at Harvard.
What I’d like to do in the next 45 minutes is offer you a way to think about strategy. “Strategy” is a word used frequently and often indiscriminately. At its core, though, we understand that strategy is about the big picture — how an organization is going to win in its environment. Yet, many management teams still struggle with what this really means.
My goal is to share the essential ideas of strategy. While my examples will come mostly from the for-profit world, the principles apply to any organization — including NGOs and nonprofits — that serve customers in any way. I have a few slides that bridge the concepts between profit and nonprofit, which I may get to at the end.
The key point is that strategy has a profound impact on success. It’s not the only thing that matters — great strategy poorly executed won't succeed — but good execution alone rarely leads to being truly superior. To truly make an impact, you need a solid strategic foundation.
The slides I show will be available afterward, and we’ll also leave time for Q&A. I understand Buck has some questions to ask you later, so that might be an incentive to pay extra attention.
Let’s begin with what we mean by strategy and its core ideas. The starting point is to ask: what is the fundamental strategic challenge of any organization?
Most managers approach strategy from the wrong starting point. They think the goal is to be the best — the best car company, the best retail bank, the best maker of toothpaste. To be the best, they believe they must have the best product, service, supply chain, and customer support. This thinking is still dominant today.
But that’s a dangerous way to think about competition. There is no “best” company in any industry. What’s the best car? It depends on the customer’s needs. Someone in a city with no parking needs something different than someone in the suburbs. The best retail bank depends on the customer profile. You can’t be the best at serving every need for every customer.
Instead, strategy is about being unique — delivering unique value to the customers you choose to serve. That’s the essential starting point for strategic thinking. If you deliver unique value, you can win. If you aim to be the best at everything, it leads to zero-sum competition — everyone ends up doing the same thing and no one wins in the long run.
Now, what is strategy versus other management concepts?
Strategy is not the same as goals or aspirations. Many managers say things like “My strategy is to be number one in the industry” or “My strategy is to grow faster than the market.” Those are goals — not strategies. The strategy is the plan for how you’ll get there, how you’ll position yourself to reach those goals.
Strategy is also different from individual actions. For example, saying “My strategy is to internationalize” is not a strategy — it’s a step, not a positioning. It doesn’t say what makes you unique.
Strategy is also different from mission or vision. Mission and vision are about purpose and aspiration. Strategy is concrete. It’s about the specific choices you make to deliver unique value.
To create a successful strategy, you have to start at the level of the individual business — what we call business strategy. Even for diversified companies like General Electric, each business must have its own strategy. Success at the business level is driven by two things: the attractiveness of the industry (industry structure) and the company's positioning within that industry.
Industry structure determines how profitable the average company can be in that space. Some industries, like airlines, are structurally unattractive — too much rivalry, low barriers to entry, powerful suppliers, strong customer power, and substitutes.
Others, like enterprise software, are highly attractive — high switching costs, fewer substitutes, and high barriers to entry.
So a good strategic analysis must include both industry analysis and positioning analysis.
For positioning, the key question is: why are you more profitable than your competitors? There are only two ways: you either command a higher price due to differentiation or you achieve lower costs due to efficiency.
This brings us to the value chain — a framework for visualizing all the activities a company performs to create value, such as product design, production, marketing, service, etc. All competitive advantage — whether through cost or price — comes from how you configure these activities.
There’s a distinction between operational effectiveness (doing the same things better) and strategic positioning (doing different things to meet different needs). Operational effectiveness is necessary but not sufficient. Best practices can be copied. When companies all pursue the same best practices, it leads to “strategic convergence,” and they all look alike — leading to price competition and eroded profitability.
Strategic positioning requires making choices — choosing to serve different customers, meet different needs, or deliver value in a different way.
A great example is IKEA. Their strategy is built around serving customers who want stylish, well-designed furniture at low prices. Their value chain — from modular furniture to large self-service stores — supports this value proposition. They make deliberate trade-offs, such as no customization and minimal in-store service.
A key insight: a good strategy requires saying “no.” You must make trade-offs. You must be willing to disappoint customers who aren’t in your target segment.
Another example is that IKEA’s advantage is hard to copy because it’s not just one thing — it’s the entire system of activities working together. This concept of “fit” — how activities reinforce each other — is critical. It makes strategies sustainable and hard to imitate.
Another requirement of great strategy is continuity. You can’t change your value proposition every year. Consistency allows you to get better over time, align your organization, and build capabilities. Agility is fine for execution and adaptation, but not for core strategy.
A clear strategy energizes organizations. People want to be part of something meaningful and unique. But many organizations don’t have clear strategies. They imitate others, chase every opportunity, and compromise rather than make choices.
Finally, in nonprofits, these principles also apply. You must identify your customer (not your funder), define the value you deliver, and make trade-offs. Without clarity, nonprofits get pulled in too many directions. Only a small number of nonprofits actually deliver high, focused value.
In both sectors, leadership plays a key role. Strategy is the ultimate responsibility of the leader — to set direction, make choices, align the organization, and enforce clarity.