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Porter's Generic Strategies Tool
Place your rivals and yourself on Porter's four positions, check who has the lowest costs, and choose one basis of competition you can hold: lower cost, or something different.
This tool also runs as a stage in a playbook, which takes you through several tools in order:
- Increase market share Stage 4 of 5: on what basis can you win: lower cost, or something different? Start at stage 1
Not following the playbook?
The four positions
- Lower cost: produce for less than rivals, and win on price.
- Uniqueness: offer something buyers value enough to pay more for.
- Broad market, or one narrow segment of buyers.
- In between: a bit cheaper and a bit better, which Porter calls stuck in the middle.
Your main rivals
You, today
Your notes never leave your browser
Rivals, the segment and what the position rests on stay on your computer and in your progress file. To write the diagnosis, only the positions and your answers are sent to our server, by place in your list. How it works
Choose your position
Choose the one you can hold. A cost position needs the lowest costs; a different one needs something rivals can't copy behind it.
What it rests on
Who sits where
What it rests on
Save your progress
Download your progress file to continue from this point any time, on any computer: choose it under "Coming back?" at the start of the tool. Each new file includes everything so far, including the earlier stages when they are connected, so keep the latest one. Your work stays in this browser only until you close it.
Not saved yet.
Take your results with you
A PDF of where you and your rivals sit, the position you chose and what it rests on, and the diagnosis.
About the tool
Why it exists
Choose one basis of competition, and stay out of the middle
Porter's Generic Strategies say there are two ways to win in a market: produce at lower cost than rivals, or offer something buyers value enough to pay more for. Crossed with how much of the market you serve, that gives four positions. The firm that tries to be cheap and different at once ends up stuck in the middle.
This tool works on its own, and as stage 4 of our playbook for increasing market share, where it picks up the advantages that hold up from VRIO in stage 3. For the method, see our guide to Porter's Generic Strategies.
The method
How the tool works
Where everyone sits. Each rival, and you today, on one of the four positions, or in between. Who has the lowest cost per unit decides whether a cost position or a price cut can hold.
The checks. A cost position, or a price cut, when you are not the lowest-cost player; a position a rival already holds; a focus position with no segment named; a different position with nothing hard to copy behind it. Being different across the whole market is flagged as costly to fund.
What leaves your computer. Rivals, the segment and what the position rests on stay in your browser and your progress file. To write the diagnosis, the page sends our server only the positions and your answers, by place in your list, and the server keeps nothing.