Industry and Competitive Analysis

Industry and Competitive Analysis (ICA) is an essential part of any strategic management process in firms and other organizations. It contains a very practical set of methods to quickly gain a good grasp of an industry, be it pharmaceuticals, information and communication technology, professional services, or even the beer industry. The purpose of ICA is to understand factors that influence the performance of an industry and firms within that industry. Gaining such understanding supports firms in developing effective competitive strategies.

As the world witnesses tremendous development in digital technologies, many industries are in the midst of transitioning from analogue to digital business models. Digitalization is radically changing what firms produce and the way they organize their business activities. To adapt to these changes, practitioners and scholars alike need a more advanced set of analytical tools to understand the constantly-changing industries. That is why we have developed our course as ICA 2.0, which provides state-of-the-art tools to gain an updated picture of various industries before and after their digital transformation. In this course, we will study theoretical frameworks, examine evidence from empirical research, and benefit from experience shared by our guest speakers.

Goals of the course

• Students will develop an in-depth understanding of how the structure of an industry impacts both industry-level and firm-level performance
• Students will develop practical skills in analyzing industries and firms within them 
• Students will gain a broad understanding of the impact of digitalization (esp. generative AI) on various industries and develop an in-depth understanding of (at least) one chosen industry 
• Students will improve the analytical skills needed to successfully compete in the digital age
   

Format

The course is organized into twelve sessions that comprise a combination of (guests) lectures, case studies, and (tutored) group work. The schedule is subject to change, depending on the availability of the guest lecturers.

Group work will focus on the transformational impact of Generative AI and includes the selection and analysis of industries, the analysis and development of strategies for selected firms, and the presentation of results. On each lecture day, the classroom is reserved until 15:00 for this group work. We encourage you to use the given time slot to meet your group, ask clarification questions to the teaching assistant, and progress with your group work.

Structure

Friday, 12:15 - 15:00 (12:15 - 14:00 Lecture; 14:00 - 15:00 Project Work)

Room: CHN D29

Administrative Issues

Load/credit:

2 SWS / 3 credits

Grades:

50% paper/industry report (group)
50% final presentation (group)

Registration

Industry and Competitive Analysis is an elective course within the MTEC Master programs.

Students should enroll directly in myStudies. Exchange students can register by sending an e-mail to if facing problems with their registration in myStudies. Those registrations will be handled on a case-by-case basis. E-mails that are sent before the starting date of registration in myStudies will not be accepted. 

An electronic confirmation of the registration will be sent out shortly before the start of the semester, which contains an access link to the Moodle course page (featuring readings, resources for group works, group assignments).

Reading list

This course is built upon a management classic (Competitive Strategy: Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors by Porter, 2004). More recent research findings and practitioner-oriented papers in the area of strategy are also included. Readings associated with each lecture should be done before the lecture day.

To access the journal articles listed below, you have to be within the ETH domain (either directly connected to the ETH network within ETH or using VPN). PDF versions of the Harvard Business Review articles are only available via the class Moodle.

Session 2: Competitive strategy

Pre-reading:

• external pageChapter 2 of Porter (2004)call_made
• external pagePorter, M. E. (1996). What is strategy. Harvard Business Review. 74 (6): 61-78.call_made
• external pageCase study: Ryan Aircall_made
  

Session 3: Industry Dynamics

Pre-reading:

• external pageChapter 3 of Porter (2004)call_made
• external pagePorter, M. E. (2008). The five competitive forces that shape strategy. Harvard Business Review. 86(1): 78-93.call_made
• ON Case Study: Moodle

Session 5: Strategic groups & firm membership

Pre-reading:

• external pageShort, J. C., David J. K., Timothy B. P., & Tomas M. H. (2007). Firm, strategic group, and industry influences on performance. Strategic Management Journal, 28: 147-167.call_made
• external pageHarrigan, K. R. (1985). An application of clustering for strategic group analysis. Strategic Management Journal, 6(1), 55-73.call_made
• external pageHannigan, T. R., Haans, R. F., Vakili, K., Tchalian, H., Glaser, V. L., Wang, M. S., ... & Jennings, P. D. (2019). Topic modeling in management research: Rendering new theory from textual data. Academy of Management Annals, 13(2), 586-632.call_made

Optional reading:

• external pageChen, H., Chiang, R. H., & Storey, V. C. (2012). Business Intelligence and Analytics: From Big Data to Big Impact. MIS quarterly, 36(4), 1165-1188call_made
• external pageAlmquist, Z. W., & Bagozzi, B. E. (2017). Using radical environmentalist texts to uncover network structure and network features. Sociological Methods & Research. https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124117729696call_made
• external pageSchmiedel, T., Müller, O., & vom Brocke, J. (2018). Topic modeling as a strategy of inquiry in organizational research. Organizational Research Methods, 3(1)call_made

Session 6: Opportunities and Feasibility Analyses

Pre-reading:

• external pageAlvarez, S. A., Barney, J. B., Anderson, P. (2013). Forming and Exploiting Opportunities: The Implications of Discovery and Creation Processes for Entrepreneurial and Organizational Research. Organization Science, 24(1), 301-317call_made

Session 8: ICA in the Digital Age I

Pre-reading:

• external pageAdner, R., Puranam, P., & Zhu, F. (2019). What Is Different About Digital Strategy? From Quantitative to Qualitative Change. Strategy Science, 4(4), 253-261.call_made
• external pageIansiti, M., & Lakhani, K. R. (2020). From Disruption to Collision: The New Competitive Dynamics. MIT Sloan Management Review, 61(3), 34-39.call_made

Optional reading:

• external pageLi, W. C., Nirei, M., & Yamana, K. (2019). Value of data: there’s no such thing as a free lunch in the digital economy. US Bureau of Economic Analysis Working Paper, Washington, DC.call_made
• external pagePorter, Michael E., and James E. Heppelmann. (2015) "How Smart, Connected Products Are Transforming Companies." Harvard Business Review 93 (10): 97–114.call_made

Session 9: ICA in the Digital Age II

Pre-reading:

• external pageKim, E., Nam, D. I., & Stimpert, J. L. (2004). The applicability of Porter’s generic strategies in the digital age: assumptions, conjectures, and suggestions. Journal of management, 30(5), 569-589.call_made

Optional reading:

• external pageDavenport, T. H. (2006). Competing on analytics. Harvard business review, 84(1), 98.call_made
• external pageGupta, S. (2018). Driving digital strategy: A guide to reimagining your business. Harvard Business Presscall_made
• external pageBakshy, E., Messing, S., & Adamic, L. A. (2015). Exposure to ideologically diverse news and opinion on Facebook. Science, 348(6239), 1130-1132.call_made