Which of the following is NOT one of Michael Porter’s three generic strategies?

Michael Porter identified three generic strategies that organizations can adopt to achieve a competitive advantage: cost leadership, differentiation, and focus. These strategies help businesses position themselves in the market relative to competitors.

Cost leadership focuses on becoming the lowest-cost producer in the industry, allowing the company to offer lower prices while maintaining a satisfactory profit margin. Differentiation involves offering unique products or services that stand out in the eyes of consumers, enabling companies to charge a premium price. The focus strategy targets a specific market segment, aiming to serve that niche either through cost leadership or differentiation.

Segmentation, while an essential concept in marketing and strategic planning, is not one of Porter’s generic strategies. Instead, segmentation involves dividing a broader market into smaller sub-groups of consumers with similar needs or characteristics, which is more about identifying target markets rather than a strategy to achieve competitive advantage per Porter’s framework. Thus, the choice of segmentation does not accurately reflect one of the three strategic paths outlined by Porter, making it the correct answer in this scenario.