Structural Analysis and Competitive Strategy

Once the forces affecting competition in an industry and their underlying causes have been diagnosed, the firm is in a position to identify its strengths and weaknesses relative to the industry. From a strategic standpoint, the crucial strengths and weaknesses are the firm’s posture vis-à-vis the underlying causes of each competitive force. Where does

Structural Analysis and Competitive Strategy

A great deal of attention has been directed at defining the rele-vant industry as a crucial step in competitive strategy formulation. Numerous writers have also stressed the need to look beyond prod-uct to function in defining a business, beyond national boundaries to potential international competition, and beyond the ranks of one’s competitors today to

Three Generic Strategies

In coping with the five competitive forces, there are three poten-tially successful generic strategic approaches to outperforming other firms in an industry: overall cost leadership differentiation focus. Sometimes the firm can successfully pursue more than one approach as its primary target, though this is rarely possible as will be dis-cussed further. Effectively implementing any

Generic Strategies: Stuck in the Middle

The three generic strategies are alternative, viable approaches to dealing with the competitive forces. The converse of the previous discussion is that the firm failing to develop its strategy in at least one of the three directions—a firm that is “stuck in the middle”—is in an extremely poor strategic situation. This firm lacks the

Risks of the Generic Strategies

Fundamentally, the risks in pursuing the generic strategies are two: first, failing to attain or sustain the strategy; second, for the value of the strategic advantage provided by the strategy to erode with industry evolution. More narrowly, the three strategies are predicated on erecting differing kinds of defenses against the com-petitive forces, and not

A framework for competitor analysis

Competitive strategy involves positioning a business to maximize the value of the capabilities that distinguish it from its competitors. It follows that a central aspect of strategy formulation is perceptive competitor analysis. The objective of a competitor analysis is to de-velop a profile of the nature and success of the likely strategy changes each

The Components of Competitor Analysis

Before discussing each component of competitor analysis, it is important to define which competitors should be examined. Clearly all significant existing competitors must be analyzed. However, it also may be important to analyze the potential competitors that may come on the scene. Forecasting potential competitors is not an easy task, but they can often be identified

Putting the Four Components Together—The Competitor Response Profile

Given an analysis of a competitor’s future goals, assumptions, current strategies, and capabilities, we can begin to ask the critical questions that will lead to a profile of how a competitor is likely to respond. 1. OFFENSIVE MOVES The first step is to predict the strategic changes the competitor might initiate. Satisfaction with current

Competitor Analysis and Industry Forecasting

An analysis of each significant existing and potential competi-tor can be used as an important input to forecasting future industry conditions. The knowledge of each competitor’s probable moves and capacity to respond to change can be summed up, and competi–tors can be seen as interacting with each other on a simulated basis to answer

The Need for a Competitor Intelligence System

Answering these questions about competitors creates enormous needs for data. Intelligence data on competitors can come from many sources: reports filed publicly, speeches by a competitor’s management to security analysts, the business press, the sales force, a firm‘s customers or suppliers that are common to competitors, in-spection of a competitor’s products, estimates by the

Types of Market Signals

Market signals can have two fundamentally different functions: they can be truthful indications of a competitor’s motives, inten-tions, or goals or they can be bluffs. Bluffs are signals designed to mislead other firms into taking or not taking an action to benefit the signaler. Discerning the difference between a bluff and a true signal

The Use of History in Identifying Market Signals

Studying the historical relationship between a firm‘s announce–ments and its moves, or between other varieties of potential signals and the subsequent outcomes, can greatly improve one‘s ability to read signals accurately. Searching for signs a competitor may have inadvertently given before making changes in the past can also help to uncover new types of

Can Attention to Market Signals Be a Distraction?

Given the subtlety of interpreting market signals, one can take the view that too much attention to them can be a counterproductive distraction. Rather than getting all tangled up second-guessing com-petitors’ words and actions, holds this view, companies should focus their time and energy on competing. Although situations might be imagined in which top

Industry Instability: The Likelihood of Competitive Warfare

The first question for the firm in considering offensive or defen-sive moves is the general degree of instability in the industry or the industry-wide conditions that may mean a move will touch off wide-spread warfare. Some industries require much softer treading than others. The underlying structure of an industry, discussed in Chapter 1, determines

Competitive Moves

Because in an oligopoly a firm is partly dependent on the behav-ior of its rivals, selecting the right competitive move involves finding one whose outcome is quickly determined (no protracted or serious battle takes place) and also skewed as much as possible toward the firm‘s own interests. That is, the goal for the firm

Competitive Moves: Commitment

Perhaps the single most important concept in planning and exe-cuting offensive or defensive competitive moves is the concept of commitment. Commitment can guarantee the likelihood, speed, and vigor of retaliation to offensive moves and can be the cornerstone of defensive strategy. Commitments influence the way competitors per-ceive their positions and those of rivals. Establishing

Competitive Moves: Focal Points

A problem leading to instability in oligopoly is in coordinating the expectations of competitors about what the eventual market out-come will be. To the extent that competitors have divergent expecta-tions, jockeying will continue to occur and the prospect of outbreaks of warfare is likely. Thomas Schelling’s work on game theory” sug-gests that an important

Competitive Moves: A Note on Information and Secrecy

In part because of the proliferation of the business press and in-creased requirements for public filings, companies are disclosing more and more about themselves. Although some of this is legally required, much of what is written in annual reports, stated in inter-views or speeches, or comes out via other means is not statutorily re-quired.

Strategy toward buyers: Buyer Selection

Most industries sell their products or services not to a single buyer but to a range of different buyers. The bargaining power of this group of buyers, viewed in aggregate terms, is one of the key competitive forces determining the potential profitability of an in-dustry. Chapter 1 has examined some of the structural conditions

Strategy toward suppliers: Purchasing Strategy

The analysis of suppliers’ power in Chapter 1 coupled with a re-verse application of the principles of buyer selection can help a firm in formulating purchasing strategy. Although there are many aspects of purchasing strategy, procedures, and organization that go well beyond the scope of this book, some issues can be usefully examined by