The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy

Summary

En este diálogo, Tom Stewart, editor y director gerente de Harvard Business Review, conversa con Michael Porter, profesor de Harvard y líder del Instituto para la Estrategia y la Competitividad. Porter, autor del artículo 'Las cinco fuerzas competitivas que moldean la estrategia', actualiza su artículo seminal de 1979. Explora cómo las cinco fuerzas afectan la rentabilidad y la competencia en la industria, utilizando el ejemplo de las aerolíneas. También discuten la aplicación de la teoría en prácticas empresariales y cómo la estrategia debe ser una herramienta diaria para todos en la organización, más allá de un grupo selecto de estrategistas.

Takeaways

• 📚 El concepto de las cinco fuerzas competitivas de Michael Porter es una actualización y extensión de su artículo de 1979, ofreciendo una visión integral de la competencia más allá de los competidores directos.
• 🤝 La competencia no solo se encuentra entre los competidores directos, sino también con los clientes, proveedores, nuevas empresas y productos o servicios sustitutos, que influyen en la rentabilidad y crecimiento.
• 🛫 La industria de las aerolíneas es un ejemplo de una industria con baja rentabilidad debido a la intensa competencia, bajas barreras de entrada, poderosos proveedores y la fidelidad de los clientes a los precios.
• 💡 Las cinco fuerzas son una herramienta para entender los factores estructurales subyacentes que afectan la rentabilidad y competencia en cualquier industria, incluidas las tendencias que podrían cambiar el panorama.
• 🔍 La aplicación de este análisis a una industria, como las refrescos, muestra cómo diferentes configuraciones de fuerzas pueden conducir a diferentes niveles de rentabilidad y éxito.
• 🌐 El marco de las cinco fuerzas se ha demostrado como robusto y aplicable a cualquier industria, producto o servicio, sin importar la economía o la tecnología involucrada.
• 🚀 La internet, a pesar de ser una tecnología disruptiva, no debe ser vista como una fuerza por sí sola sino como una tecnología que puede o no impactar la estructura subyacente de la industria.
• 🤔 La aplicación del marco de las cinco fuerzas en la práctica puede ser compleja y requiere clarificar áreas como la naturaleza de la competencia y cómo se puede ser positivo o negativo.
• 💼 La estrategia no debería ser un proceso exclusivo de un grupo selecto de la empresa, sino que debe ser comprendida y aplicada por todos los empleados para lograr una alineación y un enfoque común.
• 📈 La estrategia debe ser una herramienta para expandir la rentabilidad de la industria y no solo para ganar mayor cuota de mercado, lo que podría desencadenar batallas destructivas.
• 🔑 La definición de la industria y el análisis de su estructura es fundamental para formular una estrategia efectiva y para entender cómo está cambiando y sus implicaciones para la empresa.

Q & A

¿Quién es Michael Porter y qué contribuciones importantes ha hecho a la teoría de la estrategia?

Michael Porter es profesor en la Universidad de Harvard y líder del Instituto para la Estrategia y la Competitividad. Es el autor de artículos importantes como 'The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy', que es una actualización y extensión de su artículo de 1979 'How Competitive Forces Shape Strategy'.

¿Cuáles son las cinco fuerzas competitivas que describe Michael Porter?

Las cinco fuerzas competitivas son: la rivalidad con los competidores directos, la capacidad de negociación de los clientes, la capacidad de negociación de los proveedores, la amenaza de nuevas empresas entrantes al mercado y la amenaza de productos o servicios sustitutos.

¿Cómo se relaciona la rivalidad con los competidores en el modelo de las cinco fuerzas?

La rivalidad es parte de la lucha por beneficios, y el modelo señala que la competencia no solo es con los competidores directos sino con un conjunto más amplio de competidores que incluyen a los clientes, proveedores, nuevas empresas y productos sustitutos.

¿Por qué la industria de las aerolíneas es una de las menos rentables según el modelo de las cinco fuerzas?

La industria de las aerolíneas es menos rentable debido a la intensa rivalidad, bajas barreras de entrada, la fidelidad de los clientes basada en el precio, la influencia de proveedores poderosos y la presencia de alternativas como trenes o automóviles.

¿Cómo afectan los proveedores a la rentabilidad de la industria de las aerolíneas según el script?

Los proveedores, como fabricantes de motores y aeronaves, tienen mucho poder de negociación y pueden obtener la mayor parte de las ganancias, dejando menos beneficios para las aerolíneas.

¿Qué ejemplos de industrias con fuerzas competitivas benignas proporciona Michael Porter en el script?

Michael Porter menciona la industria de las bebidas refrescantes como un ejemplo de una industria con fuerzas competitivas benignas, donde las empresas han tenido licencia para imprimir dinero debido a la atracción de todas las fuerzas.

¿Cómo la tecnología de internet ha impactado la aplicación del marco de las cinco fuerzas según el punto de vista de Michael Porter?

La tecnología de internet a menudo se confundió con una fuerza en sí misma en lugar de ser una tecnología que podría o no impactar la estructura subyacente de la industria, lo que ha llevado a confusiones en su aplicación.

¿Qué es la competencia suma positiva y cómo se relaciona con el crecimiento del mercado según el script?

La competencia suma positiva es cuando las empresas compiten en diferentes atributos, servicios, características o soporte al cliente, lo que permite que cada empresa encuentre su nicho y crezca el mercado para todos.

¿Cómo Michael Porter sugiere que una empresa debería comenzar a utilizar el marco de las cinco fuerzas para formular su estrategia?

Porter sugiere que la empresa comience con un análisis de la industria, identificando sus límites y estructura, y luego examine cómo está cambiando la industria y cuáles son las implicaciones de esos cambios para su estrategia.

¿Por qué es importante que la estrategia sea comprendida por todos en la organización y no solo por un grupo selecto?

La estrategia es inútil a menos que los resultados del proceso de estrategia sean bien entendidos en toda la organización, ya que el propósito principal de la estrategia es la alineación, asegurando que todos en la organización estén haciendo elecciones que refuerzan un valor propuesto común o una forma común de ganar ventaja competitiva.

¿Cómo Michael Porter ve el papel de los empleados y canales en la comprensión y ejecución de la estrategia de una empresa?

Porter cree que los empleados y los canales deben conocer la estrategia de la empresa, ya que esto ayuda a evitar guerras de precios destructivas y a que cada competidor encuentre una necesidad única que satisfacer, lo que puede llevar a un éxito múltiple en la industria.

Outlines

00:00

🚀 Introducción a las Cinco Fuerzas Competitivas

En este primer párrafo, Tom Stewart, editor y director gerente de la Harvard Business Review, entrevista a Michael Porter, profesor de la Universidad de Harvard y líder del Instituto para la Estrategia y la Competitividad. Porter es el autor del artículo 'Las Cinco Fuerzas Competitivas que Modelan la Estrategia', que es una actualización y extensión de su artículo seminal de 1979. Se discute la idea básica de las cinco fuerzas competitivas, que abordan cómo la competencia no solo es con los competidores directos sino también con una amplia gama de competidores, clientes, proveedores, nuevos entrantes y productos o servicios sustitutos. Estas fuerzas ayudan a comprender los factores estructurales subyacentes de la rentabilidad y la competencia en cualquier industria.

05:00

🛫 Aplicación de las Cinco Fuerzas en la Industria Aeronáutica

El diálogo entre Stewart y Porter se centra en cómo aplicar el análisis de las cinco fuerzas en la industria de las aerolíneas. Se destaca que esta industria es una de las menos rentables y se utiliza como ejemplo para explicar rápidamente por qué. Las fuerzas competitivas identificadas incluyen una intensa rivalidad casi exclusivamente basada en precios, bajas barreras para la entrada, proveedores con poder de negociación y la existencia de sustitutos como el tren o el automóvil. Además, se menciona la importancia de entender no solo la estructura actual de la industria sino también cómo esta está cambiando y sus implicaciones estratégicas.

10:03

🌟 Estrategia y Participación de Todos en la Organización

En el último párrafo, se discute cómo la estrategia y el marco de las cinco fuerzas deben ser comprendidos y aplicados por todos en la organización, no solo por un grupo selecto de estrategistas. Se enfatiza la importancia de que los empleados, incluso los de rango inferior, entiendan y se alineen con la estrategia de la empresa para que sus decisiones se complementen y se fortalezcan mutuamente. Porter también menciona su deseo de recibir retroalimentación de los practicantes para continuar aprendiendo y mejorando el marco de las cinco fuerzas competitivas.

Keywords

💡Fuerzas competitivas

El concepto de 'fuerzas competitivas' se refiere a las fuerzas que moldean la estrategia de una empresa dentro de su industria. En el video, estas fuerzas son centrales para entender los factores estructurales que influyen en la rentabilidad y la competencia. Se mencionan cinco fuerzas específicas que incluyen a los competidores directos, la amenaza de nuevos entrantes, la poderosa posición de los proveedores y compradores, y la amenaza de sustitutos.

💡Rentabilidad

La 'rentabilidad' es un término clave que indica el beneficio neto que una empresa genera. En el contexto del video, la rentabilidad está estrechamente ligada a la dinámica de las fuerzas competitivas; una industria con fuerzas competitivas intensas, como la aerolínea, tiende a tener rentabilidad baja.

💡Diferenciación

La 'diferenciación' hace referencia a la capacidad de una empresa para distinguir sus productos o servicios de los de sus competidores. En el video, se destaca que en la industria aeronáutica es difícil lograr una diferenciación que haga que los clientes esperen por un vuelo en lugar de optar por uno más barato.

💡Barreras de entrada

Las 'barreras de entrada' son obstáculos que dificultan el ingreso de nuevas empresas a una industria. En el script, se menciona que en la industria de las aerolíneas las barreras son bajas, lo que permite que nuevas compañías entren y aumenten la competencia.

💡Poder de negociación

El 'poder de negociación' de los compradores y proveedores es la capacidad de influir en los términos de los acuerdos comerciales. En el video, se discute cómo los proveedores de motores de aviones y las uniones laborales pueden tener un fuerte poder de negociación que puede erosionar la rentabilidad de las aerolíneas.

💡Sustitutos

Los 'sustitutos' son productos o servicios que pueden ser utilizados en lugar de los ofrecidos por una empresa. En el contexto del video, se menciona que los trenes y el uso del automóvil son sustitutos de los vuelos, lo que limita la capacidad de las aerolíneas para aumentar los precios y, por lo tanto, la rentabilidad.

💡Estrategia

La 'estrategia' es el plan de una empresa para competir y ganar ventaja sobre sus competidores. El video enfatiza que la estrategia debe ser formulada considerando las fuerzas competitivas y cómo estas fuerzas están cambiando para posicionar a la empresa de manera efectiva.

💡Industria aerolínea

La 'industria aerolínea' se utiliza como un ejemplo en el video para ilustrar cómo las fuerzas competitivas pueden afectar negativamente la rentabilidad. Se describe como una industria con intensa rivalidad, bajas barreras de entrada y poderosos proveedores, lo que resulta en una rentabilidad históricamente baja.

💡Industria de refrescos

La 'industria de refrescos' se contrapone a la aerolínea en términos de rentabilidad en el video. Se describe como una industria 'cinco estrellas' donde las fuerzas competitivas son atractivas y donde las empresas tienen más oportunidades para ser rentables.

💡Análisis de industria

El 'análisis de industria' es el proceso de evaluar las características y tendencias de un sector para entender las fuerzas que moldean la competencia y la rentabilidad. El video enfatiza la importancia de este análisis como el primer paso en la formulación de estrategias efectivas.

💡Alineación

La 'alineación' se refiere a la necesidad de que toda la organización entienda y apoye la estrategia de la empresa. En el video, se argumenta que la estrategia debe ser comprendida por todos los empleados para que todos trabajen juntos hacia los objetivos comunes y eviten la competencia destructiva.

Highlights

Tom Stewart introduces Michael Porter, a Harvard professor and author of the article 'The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy'.

Porter explains the five competitive forces as a holistic approach to understanding the drivers of profitability and competitiveness in an industry.

The five forces framework includes rivalry, threat of substitutes, new entrants, bargaining power of buyers and suppliers, emphasizing the broader competition beyond direct competitors.

Stewart and Porter discuss the application of the framework to understand industry profitability, using the airline industry as an example of intense rivalry and low profitability.

Porter highlights the importance of differentiating between positive-sum and zero-sum competition, where the former allows for multiple companies to thrive.

The interview delves into the practical application of the five forces framework, emphasizing its robustness across various industries and economies.

Porter discusses the confusion and complexity in applying the framework, especially in the context of the internet and its impact on industry structure.

The conversation explores the implications of the five forces for strategy, including expanding the industry profit pool and avoiding destructive battles for market share.

Porter advises on the importance of industry analysis and understanding the competitive environment as the foundation of strategy formulation.

The interview addresses the challenge of defining industry boundaries and the need for a dynamic understanding of industry structure.

Porter emphasizes the need for strategy to be broadly understood within an organization to ensure alignment and collective pursuit of a common value proposition.

The discussion highlights the importance of making strategy transparent to employees, channels, and suppliers for better organizational alignment.

Porter reflects on the enduring relevance of the five forces framework, which has been extensively used in management scholarship and practice.

The interview concludes with Porter's anticipation of feedback from practitioners to further refine and understand the application of the five forces framework.

Porter and Stewart discuss the misconception that strategy should be a secret, emphasizing the value of transparency and unique positioning in the market.

The conversation underscores the role of strategy in guiding day-to-day decisions of managers and employees, moving beyond an elitist approach to strategy formulation.

Porter shares insights on how the five forces framework can help managers at all levels understand the big picture and make informed strategic decisions.

Transcripts

>> THOMAS STEWART: I am Tom Stewart, Editor and Managing Director of the Harvard Business

Review.

Our guest today is Michael Porter, Professor at Harvard University and Head of the Institute

for Strategy and Competitiveness.

He is the author of the forthcoming HBR article, “The Five Competitive Forces That Shape

Strategy”.

A reaffirmation, update, and extension of his groundbreaking 1979 article "How Competitive

Forces Shape Strategy".

Mike, thanks for joining the program.

To start, let us remind our viewers of what the five competitive forces are.

>> MICHAEL PORTER: Well Tom, the basic idea of the competitive forces starts with the

notion that competition is often looked at too narrowly by managers, and the five forces

say that, yes you are competing with your direct competitors, but you are also in a

fight for profits with a broader extended set of competitors, customers who have bargaining

powers, suppliers who can have bargaining power, new entrants who might come in and

kind of grab a piece of the action, and substitute products or services that essentially place

a constraint or a cap on your profitability and growth.

So the five forces is kind of a holistic way of looking at any industry and understanding

the structural underlying drivers of profitability and competence.

>> STEWART: So I use this to think about my rival makes it difficult for me.

The threat of substitutes means I cannot overcharge.

The threat of new entrants’ means I cannot overcharge.

>> PORTER: Right.

>> STEWART: The same thing with the buyers and suppliers.

>> PORTER: The buyers and suppliers, and there is underlying drivers of each of those forces

that the model really sort of unveils and then you can actually apply this.

Every industry is different.

Every industry will have a different set of economic fundamentals, but the five forces

help you hone in on, first of all, what is really causing profitability in the industry.

What are the trends that are most likely to be significant in changing the game in the

industry?

Where are the constraints, which if you can relax, it might allow you to find a really

strong competitive position?

>> STEWART: So how would you apply this analysis to an industry?

Airlines for example.

>> PORTER: Airlines is a great industry.

Actually you will see in the article or you have seen in the article that there is a chart

that compares profitability of industries, and airlines, I think has been on the bottom

of that list for decades.

It is among the least profitable industries known to man, and the five forces really allow

you very quickly to understand why.

I mean, let us just go around the chart.

The nature of rivalry is incredibly intense and it is almost exclusively unpriced.

It has been very hard to differentiate, get the customer to wait even an extra two or

three minutes for another flight if they can get on the flight with a cheaper price.

So there has been a very intense price competition, low barriers to entry.

Constant stream of new airlines coming into the industry despite the fact that probability

is low.

It always puzzles me.

>> STEWART: Low barriers to entry because you can rent a plane, you do not have to buy

them.

>> PORTER: You can rent a plane.

You can lease a gate.

It is all generic technology.

You can start with one flight between two city pairs.

There is no real need to have a whole network in the beginning, and yet, people keep coming

in.

I think it is just one of those "sexy" industries.

It is a great example of how sexiness or coolness or hotness or cheapness has nothing to do

with industry profitability.

The underlying structure is what drives profitability.

Yeah, the customer is very fickle and price sensitive.

Suppliers of aircraft and aircraft engines and even aircraft gates at airports now have

a lot of clout.

They can bargain away most of the profits.

GE, and Rolls-Royce, and Airbus, and Boeing make a lot more money than Airlines.

They get most of the profit.

And then of course, there is always the substitute of getting on the train or driving your car

or shipping your goods by air and that sets kind of kept the consumer.

>> STEWART: You have powerful suppliers of labor too.

That is another powerful supplier.

>> PORTER: Right, exactly.

There is a great case where you have unionized labor.

Unlike other industries, in this industry particularly with the pilots, the labor can

literally shut you down, and there is no way around them.

So, it is an industry where there are spurts of what you might call mediocre profitability

punctuated by long periods of terrible profitability.

>> STEWART: So everyone of the five forces is very strong in that industry and you could

take another industry where the five forces are relatively benign.

>> PORTER: Right, like soft drinks.

I mean, soft drinks have been a license to mint money and again, it is the opposite kind

of analysis.

When I talk with students, we kind of joke around, there are five-star industries where

all the forces are attractive like soft drinks.

There are zero-star industries where all the forces are unfavorable like airlines and we

are always trying to understand, okay, what is the configuration of underlying economic

drivers that is going to really shape the profit potential of this industry and then

armed with that insight, what do I do about it?

How do I try to relax the constraint that is holding back industry profitability?

How can I position myself to kind of insulate from some of the gales, gale winds of those

forces?

Those implications of the five forces are something that this new article has developed

in much more detail.

>> STEWART: You conceived this framework nearly three decades ago and it has been the most

extensively used both in management scholarship and management practice of any strategy framework,

and it changed the definition of strategy in a lot of ways.

In these three decades, what have you learned?

What have you learned about the application of these ideas in the real world of business?

>> PORTER: Well, the wonderful thing of course we learned is that these concepts can be applied

to literally any, any industry, to product, to service, high-tech, low-tech, emerging

economies, developed economies.

Indeed, what one of the powers of the framework is it helps you get avoid getting trapped

or tricked by the latest trend or the latest technological sensation, and really allows

you to focus on the underlying fundamentals.

The internet is a good example.

We got very, very confused by the internet because people saw the internet as a force

as supposed to really enabling technology that might or might not impact the underlying

structure of the industry.

So I think one thing I have learned is the framework is very, very robust, but I have

also learned that there is a lot of confusion and complexity in actually applying the framework

in actual practice and we tried to clear as many of those areas up as we could in this

new article.

For example, how to think about rivalry?

How do we understand when rivalry is really positive-sum, which allows many companies

to do well?

When does rivalry become really zero-sum, where everybody is kind of dragged down into

a destructive battle that you cannot win.

>> STEWART: Well, I can understand zero-sum.

I mean, if we get in a price war, the only one who wins is the consumer, which is nice

if you are a consumer.

>> PORTER: Yeah.

>> STEWART: But what do you mean by positive-sum competition?

>> PORTER: Well, the trouble with the zero-sum competition is then the consumer gets a little

price, but they really got no choice, and a positive-sum competition is where companies

can compete on different attributes, services, features, customer support, that is actually

relevant to particular groups of customers.

The most really positive-sum competition is where companies are really competing on different

things in order to meet the needs of different segment.

>> STEWART: So we are growing the pie and there is a piece for each of us.

>> PORTER: There is a piece for each of us.

In fact, one of the things we talked about in the new article, one of the things I did

in the new article that we really probably did not have the experience to do so many

years ago was really talk a lot about the implications.

If this is the way competition works, what do you do about it?

One of them is might be in some industries rather than go for market share against your

rivals, you might be much better off just really expanding the pie, expanding the whole

profit pool of the industry.

That may be the best way for a market leader to actually improve their circumstances rather

than to trigger a destructive battle with their head-to-head rival.

>> STEWART: How should a company get started using the five forces framework?

You are working your strategy and you decide, "This really works for me."

How do you begin?

>> PORTER: Well, I think industry analysis and looking at the competitive environment

is of course, probably the starting basic discipline of any strategy formulation process.

If you do not know what your industry looks like, if you do not know how it is changing,

if you do not know what the drivers or competition are, strategy is going to be marginally useful,

if not destructive.

So we got to start with industry analysis figuring out what your industry is and drawing

the right boundaries.

>> STEWART: That is not always easy.

>> PORTER: It is not always easy.

We have added a box in this new article, which really addresses that question because I encountered

so many companies that struggled with industry definition, identifying really what the industry

structure is in your particular industry.

And then there is another thing that a lot of managers do.

They kind of go through the industry analysis and they say, "Okay.

This is good, this is bad.

This is good, this is bad."

So this is an attractive industry or unattractive industry, but of course the real question

is how is that industry changing?

Some have believed and taken the five forces as really a static snapshot, but of course

the five forces give you the tools for understanding the dynamics and where is that industry structure

changing?

How are buyers and suppliers and substitutes and potential entry evolving?

And then what implications does that hold for your strategy?

How do you position yourself to find that spot within the industry where you can command

a really good profit given the five forces?

How can you maybe reshape the nature of the industry structure?

We have got some great new examples that are very, very contemporary in this article that

I think will help the manager community and the investor community really understand the

application of this.

>> STEWART: Sometimes when people think about strategy, they think about a group of people,

maybe from a management consulting firm or maybe on the 33rd floor of the building, whatever

it is, but it is sort of elite strategy priesthood that goes in and does this.

They are almost divorced from the rest of the management of the company, the 99% of

the other people working in the company.

How can a strategy become part of the day-to-day life of a working stiff manager in a company?

How do you apply this framework, this thinking?

How do you use it?

>> PORTER: Well, we think that this way of looking at an industry needs to be very, very

broadly understood in the organization.

The thing about it is that managers, even rank and file employees, it is intuitive.

People understand.

We have these customers, we have these suppliers, we are struggling with them everyday.

They are trying to get a better deal, we are trying to get a better deal.

So intuitively, I think this is a way of helping people sort of step back from all the excruciating

little details that characterize any business and say, “What is really important here?”

And then of course we have learned that strategy is completely useless, again, unless the results

of the strategy process, the position that you choose to occupy, the way you are going

to drive your company is well understood quite broadly because the number one purpose of

strategy is alignment.

It is really to get all the people in the organization, making good choices, reinforcing

each other's choices because everybody is pursuing a common value proposition or common

way of gaining competitive advantage.

I remember when I wrote this article, there were many people who believed that strategy

documents should be locked in the safe at night and should not be made available to

the rank and file.

There was a concern that some competitor would find some secret.

Well, we have actually learned now that it is the opposite.

Your employees got to know your strategy, your channels have to know your strategy,

your suppliers have to know your strategy.

>> STEWART: Your competitors probably knew it already.

>> PORTER: Well, and frankly, again the competition is not zero-sum.

If every company finds a unique need that it can set out to meet, if it tries to deliver

something different than its rivals, multiple rivals can be successful.

If your competitors can understand what you stand for and what you are committed to, maybe

they will make a different choice, rather than get dragged into this kind of mindless

price wars that we see in so many industries.

>> STEWART: The five forces that shape strategy have been around for 30 years, they are going

to be around for, well, they have been around long before you wrote about it.

>> PORTER: That is right.

>> STEWART: They have been around as long as business has been around.

They are going to be around as long as business is around.

The new article is just fabulous.

Thank you so much.

>> PORTER: Thank you.

Well, I am looking forward to kind of getting another surge of feedback from the practitioners

and we will keep learning.

>> STEWART: Thanks.

>> PORTER: Thanks Tom.