For the past twenty years, competition has occupied the centre of strategic thinking. Indeed, one hardly speaks of strategy without drawing on the vocabulary of competition - e.g. competitive strategy, competitive benchmarking, competitive advantage, etc. Thus, when asked to build competitive advantage, managers typically assess what competitors do and strive to do it better. Their strategic thinking thus focuses only on the competition. After expending tremendous effort, companies often achieve no more than incremental improvement - i.e. imitation, not innovation.

Discuss it!