Michael Porter Quotes
As a multisport athlete, I was always fascinated with competition and how to win. At HBS and later at the Harvard Department of Economics, I was drawn to the field of competition and strategy because it tackles perhaps the most basic question in both business management and industrial economics: What determines corporate performance?
Porter, Michael E. On Competition. Harvard Business School Press, 1998, p. 3.
When Bulgaria transformed from a Communist nation to a free market, competitive economy, most of the Bulgarian businessmen assumed that the competition was to get a favored position with the government and have the government then interfere with their competitors or some other government organized advantage for them as opposed to better products, better prices, better marketing. Ironically, there are still a few areas where the modern American system is much like Bulgaria was. Local telephone and electric monopolies are two of the worst.
Michael Eugene Porter is an American academic known for his theories on economics, business strategy, and social causes. He is the Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School, and he was one of the founders of the consulting firm The Monitor Group (now part of Deloitte) and FSG, a social impact consultancy. He is credited for creating Porter's five forces analysis, which is instrumental in business strategy development today.
