Driving Forces

Industry and competitive conditions change because forces are enticing or pressuring certain industry participants (competitors, customers, suppliers) to alter their actions in important ways. The most powerful of the change agents are called driving forces because they have the biggest influences in reshaping the industry landscape and altering competitive conditions.

Driving forces are the major underlying causes of change in industry and competitive conditions. Driving forces analysis is a way of understanding and accounting for change.

Driving forces analysis has three steps: identifying what the driving forces are, assessing whether the drivers of change are, individually or collectively, acting to make the industry more or less attractive, and determining what strategy changes are needed to prepare for the impact of the driving forces.

The real payoff of driving forces analysis is to help managers understand what strategy changes are needed to prepare for the impacts of the driving forces.