strategy-and-competitive-analysis
$
npx mdskill add lyndonkl/claude/strategy-and-competitive-analysisExecutes rigorous strategy using proven frameworks for market decisions.
- Diagnoses challenges and designs coherent action plans for business growth.
- Applies frameworks like Porter's 5 Forces and SWOT for analysis.
- Selects strategies based on diagnosis, policy, and coordinated steps.
- Delivers structured outputs with clear diagnoses, policies, and actions.
SKILL.md
.github/skills/strategy-and-competitive-analysisView on GitHub ↗
---
name: strategy-and-competitive-analysis
description: Develops business strategies grounded in rigorous competitive and market analysis using proven frameworks (Good Strategy kernel, Porter's 5 Forces, SWOT, Blue Ocean, Playing to Win, Value Chain Analysis, BCG Matrix). Use when developing strategy (market entry, product launch, expansion, M&A, turnaround), conducting competitive analysis, making strategic decisions (build vs buy, pricing, positioning), planning strategic initiatives, or when user mentions strategy, competitive analysis, Porter's 5 Forces, SWOT, market positioning, or strategic frameworks.
---
# Strategy & Competitive Analysis
## Table of Contents
- [Workflow](#workflow)
- [Strategic Frameworks Overview](#strategic-frameworks-overview)
- [Competitive Analysis Overview](#competitive-analysis-overview)
- [Common Patterns](#common-patterns)
- [Guardrails](#guardrails)
- [Quick Reference](#quick-reference)
**Core approach -- Good Strategy Kernel** (Rumelt): Diagnosis (what's the challenge) → Guiding Policy (overall approach) → Coherent Actions (specific coordinated steps).
**Example**: SaaS startup entering crowded market → **Diagnosis**: commoditized features, price competition, high CAC. **Guiding Policy**: vertical specialization (healthcare) + product-led growth. **Coherent Actions**: build HIPAA compliance, create compliance templates, offer free tier, invest in SEO for "healthcare SaaS".
## Workflow
Copy this checklist and track your progress:
```
Strategy & Competitive Analysis Progress:
- [ ] Step 1: Frame strategic question and gather context
- [ ] Step 2: Choose framework(s) based on question type
- [ ] Step 3: Conduct analysis using chosen framework(s)
- [ ] Step 4: Synthesize insights and formulate strategy
- [ ] Step 5: Validate and create action plan
```
**Step 1: Frame strategic question**
Clarify the strategic question, business context (industry, stage, constraints), competitive landscape, and success criteria. See [Common Patterns](#common-patterns) for typical question types.
**Step 2: Choose framework(s)**
For industry/competitive structure → Use Porter's 5 Forces. For positioning → Use Blue Ocean Strategy Canvas or Value Chain Analysis. For overall strategy → Use Good Strategy kernel. For multiple options → Use SWOT per option. See [Strategic Frameworks Overview](#strategic-frameworks-overview) and [resources/methodology.md](resources/methodology.md) for framework selection guidance.
**Step 3: Conduct analysis**
For straightforward competitive analysis → Use [resources/template.md](resources/template.md). For complex multi-framework strategy → Study [resources/methodology.md](resources/methodology.md) for integrated approach. Gather data (competitor research, market analysis, customer insights), apply framework systematically, document findings with evidence.
**Step 4: Synthesize insights**
Apply Good Strategy kernel: **Diagnosis** (core challenge from analysis), **Guiding Policy** (overall approach to address challenge), **Coherent Actions** (3-5 specific coordinated steps). Ensure coherence (actions reinforce each other, support guiding policy, address diagnosis).
**Step 5: Validate and create action plan**
Self-assess using [resources/evaluators/rubric_strategy_and_competitive_analysis.json](resources/evaluators/rubric_strategy_and_competitive_analysis.json). Check: diagnosis grounded in evidence, guiding policy addresses root challenge, actions coherent and specific, competitive positioning clear, assumptions explicit, risks identified. Create `strategy-and-competitive-analysis.md` with strategy summary, supporting analysis, action plan with owners/timelines.
## Strategic Frameworks Overview
| Framework | Use When | Key Output |
|-----------|----------|------------|
| **Good Strategy Kernel** | Overall strategy formulation | Diagnosis + Guiding Policy + Coherent Actions |
| **Porter's 5 Forces** | Assess industry attractiveness, competitive intensity | Industry structure analysis, profit potential |
| **SWOT Analysis** | Evaluate internal/external factors, compare options | Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats |
| **Blue Ocean Strategy** | Find uncontested market space, redefine competition | Strategy canvas, value innovation |
| **Playing to Win** | Define strategic choices explicitly | Where to play (markets/segments), How to win (advantage) |
| **Value Chain Analysis** | Identify cost advantages, differentiation opportunities | Value activities, cost drivers, linkages |
| **BCG Matrix** | Manage product portfolio | Stars, Cash Cows, Dogs, Question Marks |
| **Competitive Profiling** | Understand specific competitors deeply | Competitor SWOT, positioning, strategy inference |
**Framework Selection:**
- **Single product launch** → Blue Ocean Strategy Canvas + Competitive Profiling
- **Market entry decision** → Porter's 5 Forces + Playing to Win
- **Annual strategic planning** → Good Strategy Kernel + SWOT
- **Turnaround/crisis** → Good Strategy Kernel (diagnosis critical)
- **Portfolio management** → BCG Matrix + Resource allocation
See [resources/methodology.md](resources/methodology.md) for detailed framework application guidance.
## Competitive Analysis Overview
**Competitor Profiling:**
- **Identify competitors**: Direct (same solution), Indirect (different solution, same job), Potential (adjacent markets, new entrants)
- **Profile each**: Product/features, Pricing, Target customers, Positioning/messaging, Strengths/weaknesses, Strategy inference, Financial health, Recent moves
- **Analyze**: SWOT per competitor, Competitive positioning map (2x2: price vs features, etc.), Share of wallet, Win/loss patterns
**Porter's 5 Forces:**
1. **Competitive Rivalry**: Number of competitors, market growth rate, differentiation, switching costs, exit barriers
2. **Threat of New Entrants**: Barriers to entry (capital, technology, brand, regulation, network effects)
3. **Threat of Substitutes**: Alternative solutions, price-performance trade-offs, switching costs
4. **Bargaining Power of Buyers**: Concentration, price sensitivity, switching costs, backward integration threat
5. **Bargaining Power of Suppliers**: Concentration, uniqueness, switching costs, forward integration threat
**Output**: Industry attractiveness (high/medium/low profit potential), key competitive dynamics, strategic implications.
**Competitive Moats** (sustainable advantages):
- **Network effects**: Value increases with more users (platforms, marketplaces)
- **Switching costs**: High cost to change providers (data lock-in, integration, learning curve)
- **Brand**: Strong brand recognition and loyalty
- **Cost advantages**: Scale economies, proprietary technology, favorable access to resources
- **Regulatory**: Licenses, patents, compliance barriers
## Common Patterns
**Pattern 1: Market Entry Strategy**
- Diagnosis: Assess market using Porter's 5 Forces + competitive profiling
- Guiding Policy: Choose positioning (Blue Ocean or competitive response)
- Coherent Actions: Go-to-market, product roadmap, pricing, partnerships
**Pattern 2: Competitive Response**
- Diagnosis: Analyze competitor threat (new entrant, feature launch, price cut)
- Guiding Policy: Defend, ignore, or leapfrog
- Coherent Actions: Feature parity, differentiation doubling-down, or new positioning
**Pattern 3: Strategic Planning (Annual)**
- Diagnosis: Current state SWOT + market trends + competitive landscape
- Guiding Policy: Focus areas (3-5 strategic themes) for next year
- Coherent Actions: OKRs, initiatives, resource allocation
**Pattern 4: Differentiation Strategy**
- Diagnosis: Competitive positioning map + customer needs analysis
- Guiding Policy: Differentiation axis (vertical, feature set, experience, business model)
- Coherent Actions: Product roadmap, marketing messaging, pricing structure
## Guardrails
**Evidence-Based:**
- Ground diagnosis in data (market research, customer interviews, competitor analysis)
- State assumptions explicitly (market size, growth rate, competitive response)
- Distinguish facts from hypotheses
- Cite sources for key claims
**Coherence:**
- Actions must reinforce each other (not independent initiatives)
- Actions must support guiding policy
- Guiding policy must address diagnosis (not aspirational goals)
- Strategy must be internally consistent (no contradictions)
**Realism:**
- Acknowledge constraints (resources, capabilities, time, competition)
- Identify risks and mitigation plans
- Avoid wishful thinking ("if we just execute perfectly...")
- Test strategy against competitive response scenarios
**Specificity:**
- Diagnosis: specific challenge (not "we need to grow" but "customer acquisition cost exceeds LTV in current market")
- Guiding Policy: clear approach (not "be customer-focused" but "vertical specialization in healthcare")
- Coherent Actions: concrete steps with owners and timelines (not "improve product" but "build HIPAA compliance by Q2, led by Security Team")
**Differentiation:**
- Strategy must be defensible against competition
- Identify sustainable competitive advantages (moats)
- Avoid "best practices" that competitors can easily copy
- Explain why this strategy is hard for competitors to replicate
## Quick Reference
**Inputs Required:**
- Strategic question or decision to make
- Business context (industry, stage, goals, constraints)
- Competitive landscape (who are competitors, market dynamics)
- Available resources and capabilities
**Frameworks to Use:**
- Industry analysis → Porter's 5 Forces
- Overall strategy → Good Strategy Kernel
- Positioning → Blue Ocean Strategy Canvas, Value Chain Analysis
- Portfolio → BCG Matrix
- Competitor analysis → SWOT, Competitive Profiling
**Outputs Produced:**
- `strategy-and-competitive-analysis.md` with:
- Strategic question and context
- Analysis (frameworks applied, findings, evidence)
- Strategy summary (diagnosis, guiding policy, coherent actions)
- Competitive positioning
- Action plan (initiatives, owners, timelines, success metrics)
- Assumptions, risks, mitigations
**Resources:**
- Quick competitive analysis → [resources/template.md](resources/template.md)
- Complex multi-framework strategy → [resources/methodology.md](resources/methodology.md)
- Quality validation → [resources/evaluators/rubric_strategy_and_competitive_analysis.json](resources/evaluators/rubric_strategy_and_competitive_analysis.json)
**Minimum Quality Standard:**
- Diagnosis grounded in evidence (not assumptions)
- Guiding policy addresses root challenge (not symptoms)
- Coherent actions specific and mutually reinforcing
- Competitive analysis rigorous (Porter's 5 Forces or equivalent)
- Assumptions explicit, risks identified with mitigations
- Average rubric score ≥ 3.5/5 before delivering
More from lyndonkl/claude
- abstraction-concrete-examplesBuilds structured abstraction ladders that translate high-level principles into concrete, actionable examples across 3-5 levels. Bridges communication gaps, reveals hidden assumptions, and tests whether abstract ideas work in practice. Use when explaining concepts at different expertise levels, moving between abstract principles and concrete implementation, identifying edge cases by testing ideas against scenarios, designing layered documentation, decomposing complex problems into actionable steps, or bridging strategy-execution gaps.
- academic-letter-architectGuides the creation of evidence-based academic recommendation letters, reference letters, and award nominations that combine concrete examples, meaningful comparisons, and genuine enthusiasm. Use when writing recommendation letters for students, postdocs, or colleagues, or when user mentions recommendation letter, reference, nomination, letter of support, endorsement, or needs help with strong advocacy and comparative statements.
- adr-architectureDocuments significant architectural and technical decisions with full context, alternatives considered, trade-offs analyzed, and consequences understood. Creates a decision trail that helps teams understand why decisions were made. Use when choosing between technology options, making infrastructure decisions, establishing standards, migrating systems, or when user mentions ADR, architecture decision, technical decision record, or decision documentation.
- adverse-selection-priorProduces a Bayesian prior probability that an offered transaction is +EV for the recipient, given that the counterparty chose to propose it. Applies Akerlof market-for-lemons logic -- if they offered it, they believe it is +EV for them, so the prior that it is +EV for us is materially below 50%. Reusable across trade evaluation, waiver drops (another team dropping a player is also adverse selection), job-offer analysis, M&A, and any "someone offered me this" situation. Use when you receive an unsolicited trade/offer/proposal, analyzing incoming trade prior, evaluating why a counterparty proposed a deal, or when user mentions adverse selection, market for lemons, why did they offer this, incoming trade prior, they proposed it, Bayesian adjustment on received offer.
- alignment-values-north-starCreates actionable alignment frameworks that give teams a shared North Star (direction), values (guardrails), and decision tenets (behavioral standards). Enables autonomous decision-making while maintaining organizational coherence. Use when starting new teams, scaling organizations, defining culture, establishing product vision, resolving misalignment, creating strategic clarity, or when user mentions North Star, team values, mission, principles, guardrails, decision framework, or cultural alignment.
- analogy-weight-checkFor every analogy in a substacker draft, verifies it carries mechanical weight — the analogy does real work explaining the mechanism, not merely decorates it. Cross-references analogy-catalog.md for novelty (is this analogy reused from a prior post?) and domain fit (biology > organizational > sports preferred; physics/military disfavored). Use whenever an analogy appears in the draft. Trigger keywords: analogy weight, decorative, mechanical weight, reused analogy, catalog check, metaphor check.
- answer-uncomfortable-questionTakes one strategic question about substacker ("should we launch paid?", "is this section dead?", "are we writing for the wrong audience?") and produces the mandatory evidence + reasoning + downside triad plus a recommendation. Used 3 times per Growth Strategist review. Trigger keywords: uncomfortable question, strategic question, evidence reasoning downside, triad.
- attribute-performanceFor each substacker post that materially over- or under-performs the rolling baseline (|z| ≥ 1.0), produces a plain-English attribution paragraph with calibrated confidence (high / medium / low / unexplained). Considers subject-line effect, topic zeitgeist, external share, day-of-week, length effect, and audience-notes signals. Labels unexplained outliers explicitly rather than fabricating a story. Use after compute-baseline when outlier posts exist. Trigger keywords: attribution, why did this post work, outlier explanation, performance analysis.
- auction-first-price-shadingComputes the optimal shaded bid for a first-price sealed-bid auction given a true private value, an estimate of the number of competing bidders N, and a value-distribution assumption. Implements the `(N-1)/N` equilibrium shading rule for uniform private values, adjusts for log-normal or empirical value distributions, layers a risk-aversion adjustment, and caps output against the bidder's remaining budget. Domain-neutral auction theory reusable across fantasy sports (baseball FAAB, NBA/NHL waiver auctions), prediction-market limit sizing, sealed procurement bids, and any blind-bid context. Use when user mentions "first-price auction bid", "sealed bid shading", "(N-1)/N", "FAAB bid amount", "auction shading", "optimal bid first-price", "bid for sealed-bid", "blind bid sizing", or when downstream logic needs a principled shade factor rather than an ad-hoc heuristic.
- auction-winners-curse-haircutApplies a Bayesian haircut to a bid valuation for common-value auctions where winning is itself evidence the bidder over-estimated. Takes a raw valuation, a value-type classification (common_value / private_value / mixed), the number of informed bidders N, and a signal-dispersion estimate, and returns an adjusted valuation. Domain-neutral and reusable across fantasy FAAB, prediction markets, M&A bids, ad-auction budgets, and any generic bidding context. Use when user mentions "winner's curse", "common value auction", "valuation haircut", "adverse valuation", "Bayesian bid adjustment", or "over-paying in auction".