If a strategy meets a goal: It's working. If a strategy meets a target: It's a success.
Michael PorterRead
In a period of economic downturn, the overwhelming instinct is to pare back, cut costs, and lay off. If you do that, do so with your strategy in mind. The worst mistake is to cut across the board. Instead, reconnect and recommit to a clear strategy that will distinguish yourself from others.
Interpretation
What this quote means
In tough economic times, focus on strategic decisions rather than indiscriminate cost-cutting.
Michael Porter emphasizes that during economic downturns, businesses often instinctively reduce expenses and workforce. However, he warns that the greatest error is to indiscriminately cut costs across all areas. Instead, businesses should maintain a clear strategy to differentiate themselves in the market, allowing them to navigate challenges more effectively and emerge stronger.
Themes
StrategyCost-CuttingEconomic DownturnBusinessDecisions
In practice
Example use cases
During a corporate meeting discussing cost-saving measures, this quote can be referenced to promote strategic planning.
More from Michael Porter
All quotes →Health care historically has been a very siloed field that's organized around medical specialties - urology, cardiac surgery, and so forth - and around the supply of these specialty services. The patient is the ping-pong ball that moves from service to service.
Michael PorterRead
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?
Michael PorterRead
I think that, too many times, business has been seen as acting in its narrow self-interest rather than, essentially, contributing more broadly to society. I think a lot of that is unintentional; I don't think that many managers are deliberately trying to be unethical or are not trying to be sensitive to social needs.
Michael PorterRead
If your goal is anything but profitability - if it's to be big, or to grow fast, or to become a technology leader - you'll hit problems.
Michael PorterRead
You can't have a healthy society unless you have healthy companies that are making a profit, that are employing people and that are growing.
Michael PorterRead
Similar quotes
Growth makes so many dimensions of management easier. It's when growth stops that things get tough.
Clayton M. ChristensenRead
Why do eight out of ten new consumer products fail? Sometimes because they are too new. The first cold cereals were rejected by consumers. More often new products fail because they are not new enough.
David OgilvyRead
My own view is that every company requires a long-term view.
Jeff BezosRead
Businesses are not paid to reform customers. They are paid to satisfy customers.
Peter DruckerRead
When you are making a decision about how best to serve your customers, your own experience is often a better guide than a more sophisticated analysis of the market.
Richard BransonRead
Every business is a monarchy with, not a man, but an idea as king.
Henry FordRead