1.2

Given that competitor analysis is an essential component of corporate strategy, Porter (1980) argued that most firms do not conduct this type of analysis systematically enough. Rather, a lot of firms operate on what he calls informal impressions, conjectures, and intuition gained through the tidbits of information about competitors every manager continually receives. As a result, traditional environmental scanning places many firms at risk of dangerous competitive blind spots due to lack of robust competitor analysis.

To rectify this situation, I am writing this working paper to make it easy for students to study and understand.