Question

One of the challenges of strategy analysis for an organisation in a smaller economy is finding sufficient competitors in its same industry. Apart from being in the same industry, offering the same products or services, what are other common factors between organisations that permit you to undertake an effective strategy analysis? What factors are not sufficient to permit an effective comparison? (For example, meeting the same customer needs with a different product or service may be sufficient, whereas being located in the same region may not.)

Answer 1

The factors which are common between the companies that lends them to stratey analysis are:-
1) Having a similar customer base in terms of the geographic location of the customer base as well as the demographic composition of the customer base.
2) Having similar competencies as other players in the industry. For example, Microsoft, Google and Facebook are competitors because they are competing for the same talent pool of the computer engineers and their capabilities which is the biggest competency for them.
3) Competitors can also be analysed from the perspective of their manufacturing process and their similarities and dissimilarities and their raw material requirements and the supplier base of each of them.

The some of the factors which are not sufficient to warrant a comparison are:-
1) Companies located in the same geography.
2) Companies hiring from similar universities and colleges.
3) Companies having similar vintage and number of years of existence
4) Companies listed in the same stock exchange