Generic Strategies

Generic strategies are an attempt to categorize the various strategic options for competing in a market into a simple set of strategy types, a typology. Porter offered the first and most celebrated attempt at this following his seminal 1980 book on competitive strategy. He offered three main types: cost, differentiation, and focus. This was a simple but powerful approach that fostered better general comprehension of strategy forces. However, it suffers from conceptual difficulties primarily the assertion that cost and differentiation are mutually exclusive leading to the famous “stuck in the middle debate.” It also suffers from being too simplistic to capture the realities and complexities of differentiation strategies. It also largely ignores resource side considerations. The Mintzberg typology is noted as an alternative.