Core competencies are activities in the value chain that create economic value, that are rare among a firm’s competitors, and that competitors find difficult to imitate.

• Different assumptions lead to different outcomes. The real question is, where do those differences come from in the first place?
• Know who the critical stakeholders are. Know who can implement the recommendations, and even more important, who can stop them from being implemented.

The Five Forces model is widely used to analyze the industry structure of a company as well as its corporate strategy. Porter identified five undeniable forces that play a part in shaping every market and industry in the world, with some caveats. The five forces are frequently used to mea...

• Value: Is the strategy valuable? Does it increase a firm’s revenues or reduce its cost compared to not pursuing the strategy?
• Rarity: Does a firm possess unusual skills or other assets that the strategy would utilize?
• Imitate

• Be aware of the politics of the situation and work them into your strategy.
• Preview leaders ahead of time. No surprises.
• Try to anticipate questions members of the top management team might have about your process or your recommendations.
• Keep key players and clients ...

• There are always underlining assumptions and biases behind every decision or recommendation.
• Get to know the political landscape, the key stakeholders, shakers and movers.
• Don’t rely too heavily on analytical tools or frameworks when assessing complex problems.
• You wi...

• Keep in mind whenever you see someone apply one of these analytical tools, whether it’s the five forces framework or net present value analysis or whatever, they are just tools. It’s the skills, interests, and motives of the person using the tool that determine whether the outcome of the ana...

• Have a list of questions prepared before you enter your interview.
• Make it clear that you need to work through your protocol (list of questions) and then just keep going back to it. I usually send mine ahead of the interviewee, along with a summary report of what we know and what we ...

Three things to think about when considering cooperating with other businesses within a firm to gain synergies:

• Ability to evaluate business alternatives independently and subjectively
• Working with a team of extremely smart people who can get access to a great deal of good information
• The time to focus on the future of the company rather than being caught up in the day to day responsib...

There are a number of reasons why it may be difficult for one firm to imitate the strategy of another, such as…