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Porters Generic Strategies,Choosing your Route to success.

Introduction to Porter’s Generic Strategies
Porter classified 4 competitive strategies for companies, we take a look at each one… 💁
7 min read



A number of markers on a board representing the different generic strategies
Different companies approach markets in different ways. Look at Aldi vs Waitrose in the UK, or Trader Joes vs Whole Foods in the US. It’s healthy for markets to have alternative strategies and different approaches. Porter’s Generic Strategies helps you classify these approaches into four categories.
What are Porter’s Generic Strategies?
Porter identified 4 generic strategies that can be used to both classify company behaviour and drive company behaviour. They’re all around gaining competitive advantage, so if you’re currently looking at your strategy then reminding yourself of the generic strategies can be very useful.

The four strategies are called:
Cost Leadership Strategy
Differentiation Strategy
Cost Focus Strategy
Differentiation Focus Strategy
You’ll see right away that the strategies have shared qualities. Read through each definition as it’s not always clear – for example Cost Focus does not mean an emphasis on cost to market.

What is the Cost Leadership Strategy?
The Cost Leadership Strategy is where a business focuses on reducing the cost to deliver the products or services to a customer, ensuring you’re more profitable and thus can add shareholder value or invest in other parts of the business.
There are a number of factors to consider when you’re going for Cost Leadership:
What impact will the drive down on costs have to your customers and employees?
Is it maintainable as you scale?
How will you reinvest the additional profits of the business?
How will you produce the lowest cost delivery vs your competitors?
Will any of the saving be passed on to customers?
Can you maintain your position as the lowest cost, or will competitors catch up?
It may be helpful to bring in the Five Forces analysis of your marketplace for this strategy and consider the Supplier and Buyer powers.
When looking at the Cost Leadership Strategy you should review:
Your current suppliers and their costs
Technology and innovations that can reduce your processes
Process speed and efficiency
Your people cost and their progression
Your management team skills – detail, process driven, analytical and financial are required attributes of the team
When done well the Cost Leadership Strategy opens up several options to companies:
Increasing your profit margins by maintaining your current cost
Resisting price increases when competitors are forced to do so
Reducing the price to become more competitive
Investing the profits into diversifying your business, automation for further cost reduction, or shareholder value
Examples:
Aldi market entry
IKEA (at least initially)
McDonalds
Remember: Cost Leadership is a long term strategy – if you stop focusing on it, cost will start to creep back into the business in ways that were not required. Read more in our Guide to Strategic Cost Reduction.
What is the Differentiation Strategy?
The Differentiation Strategy is where a business focuses on differentiating their products or services from competitors. This strategy has a wide spectrum from full product diversity through to unique features within a core product.
There’s a number of factors to consider when you’re going for Differentiation:
How mature is the market your product or service operates in?
What is the history of competitor innovation?
What does your customer feedback suggest?
Is your company setup to take advantage of new features with strong marketing?
Why do you currently win or lose sales deals?
How do you currently research the market and requirements?
Your management team skills – creativity, outward thinking, market expertise are required attributes
If you’re looking at the Differentiation Strategy then it’s helpful to also look at the Ansoff Matrix and the 4Ps of Innovation.
When looking at the Differentiation Strategy you should review:
Your current product or service portfolio
Your competitors and their portfolio
Trends within customer feedback
Current resources and effort to innovation
Cost of resource
Any M&A activity observed within the market including if there is an opportunity for you
Map your 4Ps against your current setup
When done well the Differentiation Strategy opens up several options to companies:
Enter new markets to diversify revenue
Grow existing revenue streams with upsells or by winning more deals
Grow existing revenue by price increases
Opening up marketing channels with news about features or products
Building a community within your customer base around new features
Increasing loyalty of customers by delighting them
Examples:
Nokia (prior to their mistakes)
Starbucks
Apple
Porter developed a way to evaluate if a market is worth diversifying into using three tests – you can read more in our guide to Porter’s Three Tests.
Remember: Differentiation as a strategy can open you up to risks – make sure your BAU revenue is well protected and you do not get distracted. In Differentiation the work you do today is as important initially as the work for tomorrow.
What is the Cost Focus Strategy?
The Cost Focus Strategy is an evolution of the Cost Leadership Strategy. As the name suggests, there are two aspects to this strategy. The “Focus” refers to when a company focuses on a niche market, either by industry or geography, and becomes the expert in delivering for that industry. The “Cost” refers to the company producing the product or service for an aggressive cost to them, much like the Cost Leadership Strategy we discussed earlier.
In addition to the factors from Cost Leadership, you should consider the following:
How big is the niche market you’re operating in or working towards?
Can you provide the product or service at a cheaper cost than the competition?
Can you maintain the quality required to be leader in the niche market?
What is the level of cost per customer to become the leader within this market?
This strategy has all the benefits of Cost Leadership while also providing additional options:
Becoming thought leaders within an industry
Opening up partnerships with other companies in the same industry
Providing a level of credibility to your overall company story
Generate customer loyalty by becoming the single trusted provider in the industry
Remember: You can’t have a Cost Focus Strategy without focusing on the Cost! Follow our guide to Strategic Cost Reduction.
What is the Differentiation Focus Strategy?
The Differentiation Focus Strategy is an evolution of the Differentiation Strategy. As with Cost Focus, there are two aspects – one focusing on the Differentiation aspect of the strategy while the other highlights the fact the business is entering a niche marketplace.
In addition to the factors from Differentiation, you should consider the following:
How big is the niche market you’re operating in or working towards?
Does the market lend itself to differentiation?
What is the size of the market vs the investment required to differentiate?
What new features or products will make you successful?
This strategy has all the benefits of Differentiate while also providing additional options:
Cross-selling between customers within markets
Changing the market or customers by replacing products
Innovating additional services to sell as auxiliary products
Remember: Differentiate Focus is hard in a mature marketplace – investigate your competitor products and customer feedback before deciding on this approach. Consider running both Five Forces and Porter’s Three Tests on the new marketplace.
Which do you prefer when you fly: a cheap, no-frills airline, or a more expensive operator with fantastic service levels and maximum comfort? And would you ever consider a small company with just a few routes?
The choice is up to you, of course. But the point we’re making here is that when you come to book a flight, there are some very different options available. Why is this so? The answer is that each of these airlines has chosen a different way of achieving competitive advantage in a crowded marketplace.
In this article and video, we’ll look at three approaches described by Michael Porter.

Click here
to view a transcript of this video.
The no-frills operators have opted to cut costs to a minimum and pass their savings on to customers in lower prices. This helps them grab market share and ensure their planes are as full as possible, further driving down cost. The luxury airlines, on the other hand, focus their efforts on making their service as wonderful as possible, and the higher prices they can command as a result make up for their higher costs.
Meanwhile, smaller airlines try to make the most of their detailed knowledge of just a few routes to provide better or cheaper services than their larger, international rivals.
Generic Strategies
These three approaches are examples of “generic strategies,” because they can be applied to products or services in all industries, and to organizations of all sizes. They were first set out by Michael Porter in 1985 in his book, “Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance.”
Porter called the generic strategies “Cost Leadership” (no frills), “Differentiation” (creating uniquely desirable products and services) and “Focus” (offering a specialized service in a niche market). He then subdivided the Focus strategy into two parts: “Cost Focus” and “Differentiation Focus.” These are shown in figure 1 below.
Porter's Generic Strategies Diagram
Tip:
The terms “Cost Focus” and “Differentiation Focus” can be a little confusing, as they could be interpreted as meaning “a focus on cost” or “a focus on differentiation.” Remember that Cost Focus means emphasizing cost-minimization within a focused market, and Differentiation Focus means pursuing strategic differentiation within a focused market.
The Cost Leadership Strategy
Porter’s generic strategies are ways of gaining competitive advantage – in other words, developing the “edge” that gets you the sale and takes it away from your competitors. There are two main ways of achieving this within a Cost Leadership strategy:
Increasing profits by reducing costs, while charging industry-average prices.
Increasing market share by charging lower prices, while still making a reasonable profit on each sale because you’ve reduced costs.
Tip:
Remember that Cost Leadership is about minimizing the cost to the organization of delivering products and services. The cost or price paid by the customer is a separate issue!
The Cost Leadership strategy is exactly that – it involves being the leader in terms of cost in your industry or market. Simply being amongst the lowest-cost producers is not good enough, as you leave yourself wide open to attack by other low-cost producers who may undercut your prices and therefore block your attempts to increase market share.

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You, therefore, need to be confident that you can achieve and maintain the number one position before choosing the Cost Leadership route. Companies that are successful in achieving Cost Leadership usually have:
Access to the capital needed to invest in technology that will bring costs down.
Very efficient logistics.
A low-cost base (labor, materials, facilities), and a way of sustainably cutting costs below those of other competitors.
The greatest risk in pursuing a Cost Leadership strategy is that these sources of cost reduction are not unique to you, and that other competitors copy your cost reduction strategies. This is why it’s important to continuously find ways of reducing every cost. One successful way of doing this is by adopting the Japanese Kaizen
philosophy of “continuous improvement.”
The Differentiation Strategy
Differentiation involves making your products or services different from and more attractive than those of your competitors. How you do this depends on the exact nature of your industry and of the products and services themselves, but will typically involve features, functionality, durability, support, and also brand image that your customers value.
To make a success of a Differentiation strategy, organizations need:
Good research, development and innovation.
The ability to deliver high-quality products or services.
Effective sales and marketing, so that the market understands the benefits offered by the differentiated offerings.
Large organizations pursuing a differentiation strategy need to stay agile with their new product development processes. Otherwise, they risk attack on several fronts by competitors pursuing Focus Differentiation strategies in different market segments.
The Focus Strategy
Companies that use Focus strategies concentrate on particular niche markets and, by understanding the dynamics of that market and the unique needs of customers within it, develop uniquely low-cost or well-specified products for the market. Because they serve customers in their market uniquely well, they tend to build strong brand loyalty amongst their customers. This makes their particular market segment less attractive to competitors.
As with broad market strategies, it is still essential to decide whether you will pursue Cost Leadership or Differentiation once you have selected a Focus strategy as your main approach: Focus is not normally enough on its own.
But whether you use Cost Focus or Differentiation Focus, the key to making a success of a generic Focus strategy is to ensure that you are adding something extra as a result of serving only that market niche. It’s simply not enough to focus on only one market segment because your organization is too small to serve a broader market (if you do, you risk competing against better-resourced broad market companies’ offerings).
The “something extra” that you add can contribute to reducing costs (perhaps through your knowledge of specialist suppliers) or to increasing differentiation (though your deep understanding of customers’ needs).
Tip:
Generic strategies apply to not-for-profit organizations too.
A not-for-profit can use a Cost Leadership strategy to minimize the cost of getting donations and achieving more for its income, while one pursuing a Differentiation strategy will be committed to the very best outcomes, even if the volume of work it does, as a result, is smaller.
Local charities are great examples of organizations using Focus strategies to get donations and contribute to their communities.
Choosing the Right Generic Strategy
Your choice of which generic strategy to pursue underpins every other strategic decision you make, so it’s worth spending time to get it right.
But you do need to make a decision: Porter specifically warns against trying to “hedge your bets” by following more than one strategy. One of the most important reasons why this is wise advice is that the things you need to do to make each type of strategy work appeal to different types of people. Cost Leadership requires a very detailed internal focus on processes. Differentiation, on the other hand, demands an outward-facing, highly creative approach.
So, when you come to choose which of the three generic strategies is for you, it’s vital that you take your organization’s competencies and strengths into account.
Use the following steps to help you choose.
Step 1:
For each generic strategy, carry out a SWOT Analysis
of your strengths and weaknesses, and the opportunities and threats you would face, if you adopted that strategy.
Having done this, it may be clear that your organization is unlikely to be able to make a success of some of the generic strategies.
Step 2:
Use Five Forces Analysis
to understand the nature of the industry you are in.
Step 3:
Compare the SWOT Analyses of the viable strategic options with the results of your Five Forces analysis. For each strategic option, ask yourself how you could use that strategy to:
Reduce or manage supplier power.
Reduce or manage buyer/customer power.
Come out on top of the competitive rivalry.
Reduce or eliminate the threat of substitution.
Reduce or eliminate the threat of new entry.
Select the generic strategy that gives you the strongest set of options.
Tip:
Porter’s Generic Strategies offer a great starting point for strategic decision-making.
Once you’ve made your basic choice, though, there are still many strategic options available. Bowman’s Strategy Clock
helps you think at the next level of details, because it splits Porter’s options into eight sub-strategies. You can also use USP Analysis and Core Competence Analysis to identify the areas you should focus on to stand out in your marketplace.
Key Points
According to Porter’s Generic Strategies model, there are three basic strategic options available to organizations for gaining competitive advantage. These are: Cost Leadership, Differentiation and Focus.
Organizations that achieve Cost Leadership can benefit either by gaining market share through lowering prices (whilst maintaining profitability) or by maintaining average prices and therefore increasing profits. All of this is achieved by reducing costs to a level below those of the organization’s competitors.
Companies that pursue a Differentiation strategy win market share by offering unique features that are valued by their customers. Focus strategies involve achieving Cost Leadership or Differentiation within niche markets in ways that are not available to more broadly-focused players.
Apply This to Your Life
Ask yourself what your organization’s generic strategy is. How does this affect the choices your make in your job?
If you’re in an organization committed to achieving Cost Leadership, can you reduce costs by hiring less expensive staff and training them up, or by reducing staff turnover? Can you reduce training costs by devising in-house schemes for sharing skills and knowledge amongst team members? Can you reduce expenses by using technology such as video conferencing over the Internet?
If your organization is pursuing a Differentiation strategy, can you improve customer service? Customer Experience Mapping
may help here. Can you help to foster a culture of continuous improvement and innovation in your team?
And if you’re working for a company that has a chosen a Focus strategy, what knowledge or expertise can you use or develop to add value for your customers that isn’t available to broad market competitors?
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Over a month ago BillT wrote
Hi Emran,

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We published this article on October 19, 2007.

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Porters Generic Strategies.

Porter’s generic strategies describe how a company pursues competitive advantage across its chosen market scope. There are three/four generic strategies, either lower cost, differentiated, or focus. A company chooses to pursue one of two types of competitive advantage, either via lower costs than its competition or by differentiating itself along dimensions valued by customers to command a higher price. A company also chooses one of two types of scope, either focus (offering its products to selected segments of the market) or industry-wide, offering its product across many market segments. The generic strategy reflects the choices made regarding both the type of competitive advantage and the scope. The concept was described by Michael Porter in 1980.[1]

Generic Strategies

Definition of ‘Generic Strategies’

Definition: Michael Porter developed three generic strategies, that a company could use to gain competitive advantage, back in 1980. These three are: cost leadership, differentiation and focus.

Description: The cost leadership strategy advocates gaining competitive advantage due to the lowest cost of production of a product or service. Lowest cost need not mean lowest price. Costs are removed from every link of the value chain- including production, marketing, and wastages and so on. The product could still be priced at competitive parity (same prices as others), but because of the lower cost of production, the company would be able to sustain itself even through lean times and invest more into the business all throughout.

Examples are the TPS system developed by the Toyota Motor Company. The TPS system aims to cut costs throughout the company, but Toyota cars are still priced at almost the same levels as American or other Japanese cars.

The ‘differentiation’ strategy involves creation of differentiated products for different segments. A variety of products, each branded and promoted differently with levels of function, allows a company to ‘desensitize’ prices, and on the basis of being different, charge premium or higher prices. This strategy also provides a hedge against different markets and product life cycles, allowing cash flow to come in even if a few products decline, while others grow or mature.

A prime example of this strategy is Hindustan Lever, which, while focused on FMCG, has a range of products even within the soaps category for different segments. Such a strategy needs strong segmentation, marketing and branding skills.

The ‘focus’ strategy involves focusing on a narrow, defined segment of the market, also called a ‘niche’ segment. For example, Porche markets to the particular segment that likes fast and expensive cars and can afford it. A company in a niche market has customers who understand, appreciate and can pay a premium for their indulgence. Competitive advantage – either by cost or differentiation- is created specially for the niche. But the risks are that the niche may not grow, or it may disappear with time and change.

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