C/B/274. Strategic Management: A Précis and Critical Review of the Positioning School

Strategic management is not clear cut, but contains a number of complementary and opposing Ñschools of thought. Perhaps the most famous is the positioning school, which has been made popular by Porters five forces framework and value chain analysis. As with other prescriptive schools of strategic management, the positioning school makes the assumption that the future can be in some way known (or predicted), which enables strategists to position their firms in a way that will maximise the benefits afforded by the industry within which they operate. Under the Porterian view, such positioning may lead a firm to adopt one of three generic strategies: low cost, differentiation or focus, upon which it would hope to achieve competitive advantage over its rivals. In part one of this assignment a précis of the positioning school is provided. In part two, which forms the main part of this assignment, a critical review helps to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the positioning school, which has come to dominate many firms strategic management practices.