4.8 Miles and Snow Typology
Learning Objectives
- Understand the Miles & Snow Typology for categorizing strategies.
Another way to categorize strategies is using the Miles & Snow Typology. A “typology” is a way of naming something. Miles and Snow looked at strategies differently than Porter. They identified four types of strategies.
Prospector
A prospector strategy is one of innovation and growth. A prospector looks for business opportunities outside of their traditional business. For example, Amazon began with books and is now in such far-ranging fields as healthcare and cloud computing.
Defender
A defender does not look to get into new products or markets. Instead, a defender is vigilant in defending their current market. John Deere would be an example of a defender.
Analyzer
Analyzers look to find ways to leverage and expand their current business. They look at their current strengths and core competencies and find ways to leverage them. This is true for most large companies, such as IBM and DuPont.
Reactor
Reactors don’t have a strategy but react to their competitors and changes with event. This is often a losing strategy. Kmart is an example.
