Valentina Montorsi

Michael Porter: The Value Chain and the Generic Strategy Options INTRODUCTION:

Is it still possible to talk about long-term coherent strategy in a market which is more and more fast, mutually related, polymorphous and unsettled?
Michael Porter supported the thesis that a fit, coherent and programmatic strategy is the only solution in order to achieve and maintain competitive advantage for the first-time in the eighties (“Competitive Strategy , Free Press, New York, 1980”; “Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining superior Performance” ,1985) and he kept upholding it until today.
During his career he developed this idea by creating and implementing several strategical tools (like for example the value chain) and extending and adapting his bases theories to different fields and business.

In an article of “Fast Company magazine” of 2001 he claimed:
“Change brings opportunities. On the other hand, change can be confusing. One school of thought say that it's all just too complicated, that no manager can solve the complex problem that represents a firmwide strategy today. So managers should use the hunt-and-peck method of finding a strategy: Try something, see if it works, then proceed to the next. It's basically just a succession of incremental experiments.
I say that method will rarely work, because the essence of strategy is choice and trade-offs and fit.”

He begin the introduction to the last edition of “On Competition, Updated and expanded Edition, 2008” saying:
“Competition is one of society's most powerful forces for making things better in many fields of human endeavour. The study of competition and the creation of value, in their full richness, have preoccupied me for several decades. Competition is pervasive, whether it involves contesting markets, countries coping with globalisation, or social organisation responding to social needs. Every organisation needs a strategy in order to deliver superior