aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahttp://tagsko.com/porter_vs_ansoffPorter versus AnsoffIntroductionThe essence of business development and commercialisation can be said to be market and growthstrategies. Porters Generic Frameworktheories and Igor Ansoffs Product /Market matrix aretwo strategic frameworks that can be used for this purpose. A well thought out market strategy canminimise risk and increase profits, which is of key importance especially for start up companieswith little funding and resources. In order to grow, companies need to adopt other strategicframeworks, which can if understood and used in the right way, help the company decide on theirnext step in the market place.In this paper I will first give a brief introduction to Porters Generic Framework theories andAnsoffs Product / Market matrix with examples where the different theoretical frameworks couldbe used. Second I will discuss the differences andsimilarities and last, I will discuss advantagesand disadvantages for using these two and other theoretical frameworks in business developmentand commercialisation projects.Porters generic framework theoriesAccording to Michael Porters book Competitive strategy: Techniques for analyzing industriesand competitors from 1980, one can use Porters generic framework theories to find the optimumposition for a company within anindustry. Often, a determinant ofa companys profitability canbe said to be the attractiveness ofan industry in which it operates. This mean that companies thatmanage to place them self correctly can generate more profits than companies who have notthought about their optimal position. The framework is called generic because it is not industrydependent.A company should reflect on its strengths and weaknesses in order to find its competitiveadvantage, and this unique strength should be leveraged. Michael Porter argued that a companysstrength ultimately could be placed into two categories: cost advantage or differentiation.Application of those strengths in either a broad (industry wide) or narrow (market segment) scoperesults in three generic strategies according to Porter: Cost leadership, differentiation and focus.These three strategies are supposed to be applied on a business unit level, which I will discuss laterunder A Combination of Generic Strategies