Industry analysis:
Discuss the strategic groups that constitute the industry and identify major competitors within each strategic group.
Use this analysis to explain the evolution of the industry’s structure during the past decade or so.
Is the industry attractive?
Who are the major competitors?
Has the industry structure changed, for example, have barriers to entry become less significant, and if so, why?
What future changes are expected?
What are the critical success factors for competing in the industry now and in the future?

Own company analysis:

Analyze the organization’s own capabilities.
Are they valuable, rare and difficult to imitate?
Do they create a competitive advantage?
How sustainable is this advantage?
Are the organization’s capabilities a good ‘fit’ with the insights revealed from your industry analysis?
Why or why not?

Use your analyses to identify the current competitive position of the focal organization.
How desirable and sustainable is that competitive position?

Based upon your analysis, characterize the overall attractiveness of the firm’s competitive position within the industry. As much as possible, please provide data to back up your points.

Strategic recommendation:

Consider a set of strategic options to help strengthen and/or grow the business/organization given its current strategic position.

Identify three or four strategic initiatives that the organization could pursue. For example, it may make sense to analyze a corporate diversification strategy. In this case, identify the forms of diversification the firm could pursue (e.g. expansion across the value chain, into an adjacent industry, or internationally) and assess the reasons for and against such diversification and whether an ownership or contractual partnership is required.

For other firms, it may be interesting to look at potential Blue Ocean opportunities.

In all cases, assess the pros and cons of each strategic initiative, including the likely execution challenges.

Conclude by making a clear and specific recommendation for a particular course of action. This recommendation should flow from your analysis and be supported by facts and data when possible.