Analysis Without Paralysis: 12 Tools to Make Better Strategic Decisions, Second Edition

4. Competitor Analysis

Description and Purpose

The purpose of competitor analysis is to provide a comprehensive picture of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors to identify opportunities and threats for your organization. Competitor analysis has four main objectives:

• Identify competitors’ future plans and strategies.

• Predict competitors’ likely reactions to competitive initiatives.

• Determine the match between a competitor’s strategy and its capabilities.

• Understand a competitor’s weaknesses.

Professor Michael Porter from Harvard University was one of the first strategists to propose a formal and systematic model to gather information about competitors (see Figure 4.1). This model encourages you to use past ...