Evaluating the external business environment

• Identifying competitive forces that drive industry structure
• Forecasting industry evolution

Knowing your competitors

• Recognizing your current and future competitors
• Analyzing competitor goals, assumptions, capabilities, and strategies
• Predicting the behavior of your competitors

Positioning your company to compete

• Identifying sources of value and competitive advantage
• Configuring your company's internal activities for competitive advantage
• Choosing the best competitive strategy for your industry
• Developing the right strategic partnerships

Aligning business strategy and execution

• Ensuring that your organization can effectively execute its strategy
• Recognizing and addressing the misalignment of strategy and execution
• Realistically measuring progress against your business strategy

Ensuring a sustainable strategy

• Identifying threats to sustaining strategic advantage
• Recognizing when strategy should, should not, and cannot be changed

Managing the multinational or multibusiness firm

• Understanding the dynamics of globalization and competitive advantage
• Expanding successfully beyond borders and across cultures
• Aligning resources, activities, and organizational goals in the multinational firm