Dance with Industry Giants – Henry Mintzberg’s 5 Ps of Strategy Explained

In business, the competition will bite you if you keep running; if you stand still, they will swallow you.

– William Knudsen Jr, Chairman of Ford Motor Company

As a business owner who has invested all the resources in making your company successful, your responsibility is to figure out how you are developing and executing the strategies to remain competitive in the market. Chances are high that you may be compromising on one aspect to make another effective.

Using Mintzberg’s 5 Ps

When you are dealing in a highly-competitive market, the first and foremost thing is to analyze what sort of strategies and techniques other businesses are implementing, and which ones will help you get ahead in the race.

Remember that you can’t simply ask people to come and take interest in your business. You should start working on building consumer trust using Mintzberg’s 5 Ps model. This competition-centered model is based on five crucial factors of    developing effective strategies   .

Mintzberg’s strategy plan works to bridge the gap between you and your success, thus opening new opportunities to maximize profit and compete with the giants.

So now, your responsibility is to know more about these Ps and figure out how you will apply them.

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How to Use Mintzberg’s 5 Ps of strategy?

Created in 1987, Mintzberg’s 5 Ps of strategy is aimed at making your business future better and more productive in the long run.

Although your business has to compete with many other organizations, remember that competition is not the only considerable facet. There are numerous other perspectives on doing business, particularly    organizational culture    and internal development. Your part is to focus on each of them.

Henry Mintzberg’s strategic teachings are a combination of ‘five Ps’ that should be applied to make your business stand out from the rest:

Plan

Your prime focus should be on creating plans since they are a form of strategy to be followed by your entire organization. Here, your part should be to develop an idea as well as an effective course of action that could deal with impending situations.

Never forget these two essentials:

• Plans should be ready to tackle future problems
• They need to be developed purposefully and consciously

 Example of Plan

Being one of the top manufacturers of 250cc motorbikes in Asian countries, Honda decided to enter into the US market with the same plans. But after some time, things didn’t turn out just the way they wanted. So, they planned to introduce 50cc motorbikes with the intention to facilitate Americans and add profits to their business.

Ploy

Since you want to stand out among leading competitors, you should be plotting actions in such a way that your competitors would be discouraged, disrupted or influenced by your actions.

Make sure that your ploy is useful and attractive for the clients so that they prefer your business instead of considering what others in the industry are offering.

 Example of Ploy

A trick by Boeing caused Airbus, their European rival, to suffer a huge loss – at the beginning of their new venture, Boeing announced the development of Sonic Cruiser, a large airplane that would be really big and accommodating for a large number of customers.

To remain in the competition, Airbus also took a step ahead and decided to give tough competition to Boeing by developing the A380 that was intended to enter the market through a different route. However

However, after some time, Boeing left the project and introduced 787 Dreamliner as the replacement. This ploy in Boeing’s strategy left Airbus stranded at a place from where it was almost impossible to go back. 

Pattern

For a strategy to be successful, your aim should be to think farther than just a plan or ploy because whatever you do, it should create behavior and direct customers accordingly. Since strategy is a combination of actions, try to maintain consistency throughout.

 Example of Pattern

While talking about strategy as a pattern, Vipp, a Danish company showed incredible patterns in their business. As the producer of high-end, expensive toilet brushes and trash bins, the company managed to make their way into the world’s top design museums, particularly New York City’ Museum of Modern Arts.

The company created their strategy in such a pattern that most of the customers are convinced by the idea of using expensive toilet brushes and trash bins because they provide high value for money.

Image Source: www.vipp.com

Position

Naturally, when you apply a strategy, it is intended to provide your business leverage and a better position, thus providing feedback on the strategy’s effectiveness.

So, what you should be doing is identifying the right position in the environment where your organization matches the environmental requirements. In other words, you should create balance and harmony between the external and internal business environment.

 Example of Position

After successfully serving in the electronics industry, Apple entered into the media and music industry. With their music platform iTunes, Apple has managed to position themselves as the leading qualified entertainment services provider for its customers.

After successfully serving in the electronics industry, Apple entered into the media and music industry. With their music platform iTunes, Apple has managed to position themselves as the leading qualified entertainment services provider for its customers.

Not only does their iTunes platform work with iPhones and iPads but it is also compatible with Mac computers, thus giving them an edge over their competitors in terms of positioning themselves in the market.

Perspective

If you are concerned about creating a powerful business image (and of course you should be), never compromise over how your business works for the world.

Whenever any strategy is applied, your ultimate focus should be to maintain an excellent reputation for your organization. For this, you must train each and every employee working for the organization, as well as emphasize the importance of implementing a collective mind approach.

 Example of Perspective

As one of the most famous fast food chains in the world, McDonald’s provides quality food at a reasonable cost with quite a lot of similarities for their customers. McDonald’s has been quite successful in maintaining the quality of their products and services, thus ensuring to keep a positive perspective among their customers.

Question to Ask

So, now that you have enough insight about what is Mintzberg’s 5 Ps of strategy and how to bring the best out it, the next step is to pay attention to some of the important questions that are listed below:

1. Does the 5 Ps model work for business requirements?
2. What modifications or changes should be made to it effective?
3. Is it good to continue the same strategy?
4. What if the environment changes frequently?

Final Thoughts

Your job now, is simple.

Answer the question, “what’s been going wrong?” by yourself.

Develop the solutions you’ve been looking for by aligning all 5 Ps in such a way that they could help your organization strengthen its position among the competitors and overcome its weaknesses.