Abstract:

In the last twenty-five years, the university teaching about competitive strategies has been fundamentally based on the seminal work of Michael Porter (Porter, 1980), professor at Harvard University and well-known business consultant and theorist. Perhaps, the main attraction of Porter's work has been its apparent simplicity and internal coherence, which has allowed explaining, with a very easy-to-understand model, much of the complexity existing in the competitive reality of companies when deciding their way to compete, as well as their implication in its results.

However, despite its recognized scientific and pedagogical value, subsequent research has shown that: 1. Porter's work was somewhat more confusing and contradictory than it seemed at first glance, and that 2. As a model, it did not agree with the empirical evidence observed by companies. However, literature has suggested that Porter's model, though insufficient for a complete understanding of the competitive strategies, should not be ignored (and actually taught), due to its evident notoriety (c.f., Hendry, 1990).

In accordance with the aforementioned research, this paper aims to contribute to the study of such competitive strategies taking as a basis Porter's work although, however, trying to improve it through the tool later proposed by Cliff Bowman: the strategic clock (Bowman & Faulkner, 1997). This tool, helps to solve most of the problems and incoherencies of prior model by simply using the client’s point of view rather than the company’s one in its analysis, therefore better explaining the reality experienced by companies. Specifically, in this work we present an example of its use through a sectorial analysis of the airline sector, adding as a novelty, a financial assessment of the real situation of the firms. Something that, from our knowledge, has not been yet studied by the literature, and that will help to jointly combine the (theoretical) strategic planning developed by firms and students, with its (real) repercussions on firm results and proposals.

Keywords:

Strategic clock, competitive strategies, financial analysis, customer perception.