Keynote SpeakerMichael Porter

The world’s most sought-after business guru and strategist, Michael Porter brings phenomenal knowledge and insight that helps corporations achieve greater performance. The leading authority on competitive strategy and international competitiveness, he is Harvard Business School’s C. Roland Christensen Professor of Business Administration. One of the school’s most popular teachers, he also lectures in the school’s senior executive programs.

Porter speaks to government and business audiences around the world, including AT&T, First Boston and Procter & Gamble. Focusing on necessary strategies, he tailors his message to accommodate the unique needs of the audience. While particularly relevant for organisations in the Pacific Rim, his customised approach and unique information helps organisations around the globe.

Author of 14 books and more than 50 articles, his Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analysing Industries and Competitors is the leading work in its field. In its 45th printing, it has been translated into 15 languages. A companion book, Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance, is in its 19th printing. His forthcoming book will bring out new insight and wisdom for dealing with competitiveness in Japan.

In 1990, his The Competitive Advantage of Nations introduced a theory of how nations compete both Business Week and The Financial Times named it one of the top 10 business books that year. In 1992, he wrote Capital Choices: Changing the Way America Invests in Industry and he has written on the relationship between competitiveness and the environment. His most recent initiative is a study of economic development is America’s inner cities, which Harvard Business Review published as “The Competitive Advantage of the Inner City”.

President Reagan appointed Porter to the President’s Commission on Industrial Competitiveness, chairing the group’s strategy committee. He maintains an active role in economic policy with Congress, business and foreign governments, including India, New Zealand, Canada and Portugal. He is leading an effort to develop a regional strategy for the presidents of the seven Central American countries.

Porter joined Harvard Business School in 1973 and became one of the school’s youngest tenured professors ever. Honoured with numerous titles and awards, he earned Harvard’s, David A. Wells Prize in Economics for his research in industrial organisation, two McKinsey Awards and many others.

Speech Topics

How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Competition

With its promise to connect our lives in an ecosystem that understands how we live, work and play, the Internet of Things is the newest buzzword, but its implications are not yet entirely understood. In fact, the Internet of Things falls considerably short of an explanation for the strategic and competitive shifts underway in business as smart, connected products usher in a new era of competition fueled by information technology (IT), says renowned economist Dr. Michael Porter, the foremost authority on strategy and competition. Until now, a framework for understanding and setting strategy aligned with IT’s transformation didn’t exist. In his latest Harvard Business Review article, Dr. Porter deconstructs this next generation of IT, and navigates how the rapidly transforming nature of products – now made smart by combining hardware with sensors, electronics and software, and connected through the Internet of Things in myriad ways – is restructuring value chains, altering industry structure, broadening industry boundaries, redefining opportunities for competitive advantage and creating new competitive threats.

Every company, especially manufacturers, has an urgent need to rethink nearly everything – from how products are conceived, designed and sourced, to how they are manufactured, operated and serviced. Dr. Porter explores various, compelling case examples of how companies and industries are capturing the value creation opportunity presented by smart, connected products – and how others must also assess every part of their business strategies and consider new models. “This third wave of information technology not only will create step function improvements in product capability, but will radically improve our ability to meet many business and human needs,” he says. And if companies move aggressively, they will enable the U.S. to reinvigorate its capacity as a technology leader in the global economy. Dr. Porter’s thinking and call to action is transformational – and essential for anyone looking for ideas to start a business, lead a division or run a company.

Strategy and Competitiveness: Businesses, You’re Part of the Problem – And the Solution

The global economy is facing serious challenges – major recession, stalled job growth, rising energy and commodity prices, erosion of public confidence. More than ever, countries and companies alike must learn to compete in an ever-evolving, increasingly volatile world marketplace, and put into place the fundamentals underpinning growth and development. By mapping out a long-term strategy, says Dr. Michael Porter, organizations, nations and cities alike can better ensure future vitality and prosperity. Informed by his proven theories on competitiveness, he discusses the nature of market competition and its impact on strategy, and delves deep into the relationship between market competition and social concerns. Of course, good leadership is also pivotal, and Dr. Porter advises on what leaders must do to ultimately secure their economic future.

Reforming Health Care: Improve Value for Patients and Reduce Costs

The arguments for how to change health care are numerous, but Dr. Michael Porter believes there is only one real solution: maximize value for patients – that is, achieve the best outcomes at the lowest cost. Our current supply-driven health care system centers around services provided – physician visits, hospitalizations, procedures and tests – in settings that don’t offer the full-range services. This has resulted in health care that is fragmented, inconvenient and costly. We must move away from this model, urges Dr. Porter, and embrace a new strategy: one that puts patients at the center and is organized around their needs. He discusses how, by shifting emphasis from physicians’ specialties to patients’ medical conditions, measuring costs and outcomes for each patient and integrating care across separate facilities, health care providers and care organizations can dramatically increase the value of health care while driving down costs and improving patient outcomes.

Creating Shared Value: The New Strategy for Competitive Advantage

Even as countries around the world continue to emerge from a bruising recession, businesses are still bearing the brunt of the blame for the economic crisis. Companies themselves are partly to blame, argues Dr. Michael Porter, because they remain trapped in a narrow-minded approach to value creation, optimizing short-term financial gains instead of addressing society’s bigger and broader problems. But these challenges can be overcome by working toward creating shared value, in which businesses enhance their competitiveness while also improving the economic and social conditions in the communities where they operate. It is not enough to be a corporate donor, he argues. He explores various and powerful ways companies can benefit society – as well as drive their own growth and profitability. Dr. Porter believes this reimagining of capitalism and its relationship to society will fuel a new wave of innovation and productivity – and perhaps most importantly, help the business world regain legitimacy in the eyes of the public.
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