Socratified....
Wednesday, October 24, 2001
Porter's Five Forces and Prep-School Classes Environmental conditions made Scott Adams describe the moronic HR manager, the comical cubicle dweller and his pathetic monotony. It is indeed very rare that environmental conditions keep the lethal right side of the brain rolling. Through this fact emerges a critical question- How does a human derive value out of his environment? When exactly did i start deriving this much needed value of getting intrinsic powers to crush the HR manager? It must be roughly around the time i started analyzing my surroundings thoroughly. Surprisingly, i realized that i was into the deadly process of evaluation, a decade ago. I remember an interesting routine i had on pleasant sunday mornings. Our group of cute little kids would desperately want to try out cricket on a cricket ground. The difficulty of fulfilling this ambition can be recognised only by people who live in urban areas of India, a nation passionate about cricket. It is only natural that whenever there is a problem, there are various issues involved. Since my memory permits me to do so, i will dwell on some of them. Getting a pitch(to put in technical terms, a batting track) to play on was a problem.Sometimes we did manage to 'catch the pitch' before the competition did, we had to share it with the irrational rain god. We did manage to sort of patent our regular pitch, but strange guys occupied it sometimes and claimed ownership. Oblivious of probability issues involved, we used to buy the balls the previous evening. This purchase of balls involved matters of considerable seriousness. There was always a voting on the nature of the game, the type of balls to be used etc. The balls would tactically be sold off after the game to reduce our costs. There always were brand and material alternatives. There were some regular teams we always played against. 5A for example, was a class full of enthusiastic cricketers. But after all this, if cricket didn't happen, basketball did. At that point of time, we were unsuspecting kids. We realized later that around the same time, a force was emerging in a distant continent. Michael Porter was coming out with some of the most structured models and the deadliest of theories in one of the best educational institutions of the world, Harvard Business School. Corporate Strategy would no longer be the same again. The theoritician started creeping into research works and strategy books. Management students derived their understandings from his works; they still do. My guess is that sentimental analysts would have opined that Porter's five forces model was the next best thing that happened to mankind after the wheel. The model sure was faster than the wheel as it managed to penetrate all corners of the management world in very small time. Quality of analysis was so enhanced that business heads would remain ever indebted to Michael Porter for his effort for humanity. Now, as i do my management course in a premier management institute, i realize the beauty of the 5forces model. It studies the competitive forces in thorough detail and after applying it, identification of threats and opportunities is just a formality. The negatives and the positives that emerge create a new avenue of thought for the value creator. The major segments considered in the model are the competitive power of buyers, sellers, new entrants, substitutes in the existing active field of present competition.This structre helpsmanagement student to equip themselvess for the not-so-distant future when we will attempt a successful foray into the big bad corporate world. I am coming to the fag end of my formative years and i realize now that i am a mature individual. I have had lots of value addition over the years as i'm a voracious reader. i have gobbled up many strategic thoughts from Porter, Prahlad, Hamel, Ghoshal and most of the other musts for management students. But somehow, I vaguely remember that i had successfully applied the 5Forces model for my Sunday morning game of cricket when i was in class5. Scott Adams, its time for us to diversify from HR managers and concentrate on the HBR greats......
- posted by Badri @ 10/24/2001 08:53:00 AM 1 comments
