Course: Evaluation of investment projects

Teacher: Andres Mota Solorzano

Student: Rubio Guerra Luis Angel

Title: What is strategy

Date: 19 / 02 / 2024

Importance of strategy: I agree with Porter's central idea that strategy is fundamental to a company's
long-term success. Operational effectiveness may be necessary, but it is not sufficient to maintain a
sustainable competitive advantage.
Market dynamics: The analysis of how static positioning is no longer sufficient in a dynamic and
competitive business environment is very relevant. Companies need to constantly adapt and cannot
rely on static advantage alone.
Sustainability of competitive advantage: The idea that a company must offer unique value to
customers or do so more efficiently than its competitors in order to maintain a competitive advantage
is crucial and makes sense from an industrial engineering perspective.

Things that don't seem useful or make little sense:

Completely disregarding operational efficiency: While Porter highlights that strategy is critical,
completely ignoring the importance of operational efficiency can be dangerous. I believe that both are
crucial and must complement each other to achieve business success.
Lack of concrete examples: The text provides a solid theoretical overview, but concrete examples of
companies that have failed or succeeded in implementing strategies versus operational effectiveness
could have further enriched his argument.

Interesting facts:

Dynamic strategy: The idea that static positioning is no longer viable in today's markets is intriguing
and reflects the changing reality of business.Importance of differentiation:The emphasis on the need
to offer unique value to customers or to do so more efficiently than competitors highlights the
importance of differentiation in today's marketplace.

It provides an interesting insight into the importance of operational efficiency in the business context,
highlighting how Japanese companies led the way in this area in the 1970s and 1980s.
Business strategies: It is mentioned that Japanese companies rarely have clear strategies. This could
generate an interesting debate on the relationship between operational effectiveness and business
strategy, and how the two must be aligned to achieve long-term success.

Service Tradition and Positioning: The extremely entrenched Japanese tradition of customer service
can lead companies to lose their strategic positioning by trying to satisfy all the needs of all
customers. This highlights the importance of clearly defining the target market and maintaining a
consistent approach to positioning strategy.