NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 1996

BR

I. Operational Effectiveness Is Not Strategy
For almost tv^fo decades, managers have been learning to play by a new set of rules. Companies must be flexible to respond rapidly to competitive and market changes. They must benchmark continuously to achieve best practice. They must outsource aggressively to gain efficiencies. And they must nurture a few core eompetencies in the by Michael race to stay ahead of rivals. Positioning-once the heart of strategy-is reject- ! ed as too static for today's dynamic markets and changing technologies. According to the new dogma, rivals can quickly copy any market position, and competitive advantage is, at hest, temporary. But those beliefs are dangerous half-truths, and …ver más…

But they work in very different ways.
Michael E. Porter is the C. Roland Chiistensen Professor of Business Adminislralion at the Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts.

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A company can outperform rivals only if it can establish a difference that it can preserve. It must deliver greater value to customers or create comparable value at a lower cost, or do both. The arithmetic of superior profitability then follows: delivering greater value allows a company to charge higher average unit prices; greater efficiency results in lower average unit costs. Ultimately, all differences between companies in cost or price derive from the hundreds of activities required to create, produce, sell, and deliver their products or services, such as calling on customers, assembling final products, and training employees. Cost is generated by performing activities, and cost advantage arises from performing particular activities more efficiently than competitors. Similarly, differentiation arises from both the choice of activities and how they are performed. Activities, then, are the hasic units of competitive advantage. Overall advantage or disadvantage results from all a company's activities, not only a few.' Operational effectiveness (OE) means performing similar activities better than rivals perform them. Operational effectiveness includes but is not limited to efficiency. It refers to any number of