Strategic and Competitive Analysis: Methods and Techniques for Analyzing Business Competition [Paperback]

Craig S. Fleisher (Author), Babette Bensoussan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 8, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0130888524 | ISBN-13: 978-0130888525 | Edition: 1

This book comprehensively examines the wide spectrum of techniques (classic as well as more popular contemporary ones) involved in analyzing business, competitive data, and information. A consistent format for each technique includes a description, background, rationale and implications, advantages, limitations, process, and related tools. Twenty-four analytical tools are discussed and evaluated with examples to illustrate their most effective application. A unique evaluation process for each model identifies ease of use and practicality. Two-part organization covers analysis and its relationship to competitive intelligence and strategy, and the techniques of strategy and competitive analysis.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

BASIC APPROACH

• This supplemental book examines the wide spectrum of techniques involved in analyzing business, competitive data, and information in a comprehensive manner with a strong bias toward application.
• Over twenty analytical tools are discussed and evaluated with examples to illustrate their most effective application.
Presents the most applicable techniques across a broad range of applications in the analysis process.

FEATURES/BENEFITS

Consistent format for each technique—description, background, rationale and implications, advantages, limitations, process, related tools.

Coverage of "classic" as well as more popular contemporary techniques.

FAROUT^©—A unique evaluation process for each model identifying ease of, use and practicality.

Designed to be frequently used as a handy comparison and reference source.

Examinations and applications of techniques used in real organizations.

Please see the Prentice Hall Custom Business Web site for the largest
educational database available for the Strategy course.
www.prenhall.com/custombusiness

About the Author

Authors Craig S. Fleisher and Babette E. Bensoussan are uniquely placed as experts in the field of strategic and competitive analysis. Their collaboration also brings to this book a healthy balance of both theory and application.

Craig S. Fleisher is the Chief Learning Officer, Aurora WDC, Wisconsin, USA. He has been President of the international association of Strategy and Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP), inaugural chair of the Competitive Intelligence Foundation, founding editor of the Journal of Competitive Intelligence and Management, a SCIP Meritorious Award winner and Fellow. A former business school dean, university research chair holder, MBA director, and board member of multiple organizations, he has held senior university positions in six countries and is/has been a popular keynote speaker, workshop facilitator and trainer to more than one hundred private and public-sector organizations in 40 countries.

Babette E. Bensoussan is Managing Director of The MindShifts Group, a consultancy with nearly 20 years experience attending to Australian, Asian, and global Fortune 500 companies, as well as SMEs, in strategic business and marketing planning, competitive intelligence, and strategic analysis. She is a SCIP Meritorious Award recipient, the highest international honor offered in the CI field, as well as SCIP Fellow. She has undertaken major studies and consulted to Australian and Global Fortune 500 companies in strategic business and marketing planning, competitive intelligence, and strategic analysis in such industries and markets as aerospace, information technology, waste services, pharmaceuticals, utilities, mining, and manufacturing operations--to just name a few.
 
Bensoussan and Fleisher are also co-authors of Strategic and Competitive Analysis, The Financial Times Guide to Analysis for Managers, as well as Analysis without Paralysis.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 457 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall; 1 edition (April 8, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0130888524
• ISBN-13: 978-0130888525
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #271,104 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Effectively covers the key bases, November 22, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Strategic and Competitive Analysis: Methods and Techniques for Analyzing Business Competition (Paperback)

As a strategy consultant, I am often asked to provide my clients with well analyzed recommendations and findings. My biggest problem always has been to justify the methods I choose to reduce a wealth of data into something meaningful. For years now, I have relied upon Porter's classics and my strategy texts from my MBA program, but they usually aren't practically oriented. This book, better than any other I have seen, provides a straight forward set of instructions and directions, along with enough examples and charts, to keep me on the straight and narrow with my analyses. I do have a few beefs eith this book - as I do most of the others on my shelf. Unlike my strategy texts, the text isn't the most colourful, and it could have benefitted from even more samples although it is already quite large in size, and you cant read through the book from cover to cover, but I keep it handy anytime I'm applying a strategy method and it works great in that way. The other thing I would have liked is even more coverage of some of the newly evolving technology-focussed methods. These minor shortcomings aside, I'd recommend it to others who, like me, have to rely upon the application of proven methods to regularly produce findings for our business clients.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding one stop source for techniques and "how to", March 24, 2003

By 

Martin (Eastwood, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Strategic and Competitive Analysis: Methods and Techniques for Analyzing Business Competition (Paperback)

It is rare to find a text that pulls together the many quite different techniques that can be used to analyze a business and the competitive environment in which it operates. This book does that, and more!

The authors have addressed their personal needs as much as the needs of those who will use the benefits of their labours. Now, when asked about a technique or asked for a recommendation as to how to attack an issue, one can turn to this one text and extract the most appropriate tool(s) and make sensible assessments of which of the various analytical tools is most appropriate.

The authors have gone one better - and I suspect that more than one MBA student will appreciate their efforts - they have included a very useful and quite comprehensive outline of financial analytical tools that add to the more "marketing" oriented techniques detailed in the core of the text. The various financial ratios are now at your fingertips. The financial analysis can be woven into the market and environmental competitive analysis.

Oh to have had access to this at an earlier stage of my career.

One of those indispensable tools. A "must have" in the office.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Handbook to Have on My OWN Shelf, August 3, 2002

By 

Katherine Shelfer (Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Strategic and Competitive Analysis: Methods and Techniques for Analyzing Business Competition (Paperback)

With this book, I finally have a cost-effective way to introduce a wide range of well-known competitive intelligence tools and techniques to our graduate students in the CI Certificate program. They represent a wide range of knowledge domains, so they need access to this basic information in a convenient format. I've adopted this as a text for the program. (To our former students--you know who you are--BUY THIS BOOK.)