xxviii This is a book about how individuals in organizations can turn data
and information into insights that decision makers cannot and will not ignore.
xxviii In our view, business and competitive analysis can and should be a key weapon in the firm's
arsenal for achieving competitive advantage.
xxviii this needed book... is devoted entirely to the process, tools, and techniques for conducting business
and competitive analysis.
p.4 in this book, analysis is defined as: "The skilled application of scientific and non-scientific
methods and processes by which individuals interpret data or information to produce insightful intelligence findings and actionable
recommendations for decision makers."
p.5 Even when analysts do substantially agree about the nature of the problems being addressed, they can
still substantially disagree about the proposed course of action. Consequently, analysts may never be able to "prove" they
were right.
p.6 competitive analysts... have to make sense of, or create
meaning from, a typically constrained sample of data and information. In an often-confused and rapidly moving competitive
landscape, they try to answer the three critical questions commonly asked of them: 1. "What?" 2. "So what?" 3. "Now
what?"
p.44 Oversimplifying complex problems is dangerous and can mislead an analyst to offer a detrimental judgment.
p.46 Analysts must be ever-cognizant of and always striving toward maintaining
any number of balances at any point in time.
p.53 The outputs must be focused to... provide assistance on complex issues quickly, yet in a comprehensive
way. The analyst's job must not be to intimidate clients with information, but rather to entice them with it.
p.57 competitive business matters rely on data inputs that have a short shelf life. In other words, the
intelligence generated about competitive actions is only useful to the enterprise for a short time period before it becomes
out of date.
p.80 Any form of intelligence generated must ultimately satisfy a decision
maker and the organization's needs. An effective analyst needs to know how the intelligence generated by the application of
a technique will be used... for any analytical output to be insightful, intelligent, and valuable to business decision
makers, it needs to meet a number of common characteristics. The output needs to be Future-oriented, Accurate, Resource efficient,
Objective, Useful and Timely. Failure to meet all these criteria to a satisfactory level will result in the analytical
output being less than optimal and of lesser value to the decision maker.
p.80 Most strategic, business, and competitive questions are complex, dynamic, and cognitively challenging.
p.132 Critical success factors (CSFs) are a limited set of aspects that are necessary to secure
and gain a competitive advantage. CSFs represent those areas that are critical to a firm's success, providing a direct
link to organizational performance
p.140 In seeking to produce better fit, analysts try to identify the managerial decisions that bring about
the necessary alignment over both short and long time frames. This requires that analysts recognize both static and dynamic
dimensions of management decisions.
p.141 the environment can be simultaneously expansive, complex, dynamic, and ambiguous.
p.186 Dynamic competition necessitates constant monitoring of any changes in the competitive environment
to determine any impact on the benchmarked parameters.
p.207 The analytical output is a continuous stream of market intelligence necessary to strategically negotiate
dynamic markets and intense competition.
p.292 Rockart defined [Critical Success Factors] as "the limited number of areas
in which satisfactory results will ensure successful competitive performance for the individual, department, or organization."
p.297 If it [a firm] is better than its rivals in all the CSFs, it has a powerful
competitive advantage and should earn higher levels of profitability than its rivals.
p.297 Because the CSF method helps focus attention on a small number of key factors that can best leverage
action in a marketplace, it helps managers to prioritize their... resources allocation decisions.
p.299 Some studies have identified as many as 25 CSFs, but typically the number that will be identified
will be somewhere between three and eight, with five being the most frequently occurring number in our experience and a general
rule of thumb we suggest initially.
p.329 So what are driving forces (DFs)? There are forces in every situation that cause things to remain
as they are or to change. Forces that push toward change are called "driving" or "helping" forces. Forces that resist change
are called "restraining" or "hindering" forces. When these forces are balanced, no change is likely to occur.
p.378 it is critical to keep in mind that the [competition] is not an inanimate object but an independent
and animate force. [Our competitor] seeks to impose [its] own will on us. It is the dynamic interplay between [its]
will and ours that makes [business] difficult and complex.*
p.378 The basic aim of a war game is to turn information into actionable intelligence by
increasing the quality of decision making.
p.378 War games today are complex role-playing simulations, which
ideally capture the complexity of competitive market dynamics.
p.378-379 A business war game allows experimentation with new strategic directions without incurring
real-world costs and so widens the range of strategic planning options a firm may be willing to adopt. It effectively
reduces the risk of making mistakes by illustrating the flow on effects of the decision or decisions explored in the war game.
It provides a simulation where some of the uncontrollable factors influencing the market can be modeled
and their likely affects explored in a risk-free environment.
p.384 the software you use to process information while running a tailored war game should be sophisticated
enough to realistically mimic complex marketplace dynamics as teams make their various moves.
p.396 Indicators are signs or suggestions that certain key things may unfold... indicators are factors...
that present a significant clue about the nature of present circumstances and suggests an eventual end result of a series
of events. They are measurable, observable, and collectible and signal progression... Observation of these...
factors are described as "indications," and information systems should be established to capture them
p.401 I&W [Indications and Warnings] analysis is not an exact science - predictions
can never be issued by analysts without some uncertainty
p.451 Analysis of competing hypotheses (ACH) is a multi-variable, qualitative technique
that aids judgment on important issues requiring careful weighing of alternative explanations or conclusions. ACH requires
an analyst to explicitly identify all the reasonable alternatives in a particular situation and have them compete against
each other for the analyst's favor, rather than evaluating their plausibility one at a time.
*From Fuller, 1993, Business as War:
"It is critical to keep in mind," notes Warfighting, "that the enemy is not an inanimate object but an independent
and animate force. The enemy seeks to resist our will and impose his own will on us. It is the dynamic interplay between his
will and ours that makes war difficult and complex."
