carrière

Extrapolation is often a useful way out from conventional frameworks. In this article, a video from Michael Porter talking about strategy in front of HEC students, back in 2002, and stigmatizing a model of competition where "everybody want to do the same", provides a grid that can as well be of interest for companies to rethink how they manage talent & diversity, and for individuals to envisage their career with a larger perspective.

Business competition and strategy

For Michael Porter, back in 2002, companies during the last 15 to 20 years have been intensively vying against each other, "using a wrong model of competition", "where everybody want to do the same", leading to "a downward spiral of destructive value". The reason for this situation, according to the Harvard Professor, are to be found in 5 trends that, although respectable to some extent, become wrong when systematized: all companies vying to dominate the market, pursuing altogether the best quality at the lowest cost, aiming at being the fastest to change, competing for the same critical resources and sharing the same passion for outsourcing. Equally misleading are the models of competition that have been borrowed to military warfare or to sports.