importance of competition case study

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Six Strategies for Winning Case Competitions

• Strategy and Operations

by Lauren Meyer and Sarah Consagra, both MMM 2020 

This content was originally published in Poets&Quants .

To prepare for business school, students gear up for lecture room cold-calling, months of career recruiting, and enough networking to last a lifetime. What many MBA students don’t anticipate are case competitions.

An often-underrated way to derive value from your business school education, case competitions offer students the opportunity to consult for real clients, helping to solve pressing business problems. These competitions have become almost a rite of passage at graduate schools across the nation. Plus, they tend to pay generously – a perk always welcome on an MBA budget.

Over two weeks, our team designed a platform aimed at educating and empowering primary care physicians to directly treat patients with HCV, a task typically reserved for specialists. We were thrilled to win the competition, and even more excited to know that our ideas will further AbbVie’s mission to eradicate a stigmatized and often overlooked disease.

Among busy MBA schedules, making time for a case competition may be difficult. However, it can be one of the most rewarding experiences of business school. After competing and succeeding in several during our first year at Kellogg, we’ve gleaned some helpful tips and tricks for designing a “winning” solution and getting the most out of the case competition experience.

1. Make it human-centered.

Get out there and talk to people! Secondary research is important. Where possible, your ideas should also be informed by robust primary research. Judges will be impressed when you are able to cite conversations with people who are “living the problem.” Through our conversations with doctors, nurses, and social workers, we unearthed unique pain points related to HCV treatment that we would have missed entirely by relying on the internet. One nurse reminded us that “doctors are people, too,” and that their own unconscious biases and busy schedules might prevent them from treating certain diseases with urgency.

2. Keep it laser-focused.

When solving an innovation challenge, there are typically a number of exciting possible solutions. We’ve found it is most effective to select the one solution you think is most compelling Then, tell the audience  why  you chose it, and build it out in detail. The audience will be much more impressed by a single, deep and well-studied solution than a set of broad and shallow ones. In our presentation, we recommended launching the education platform with primary care physicians covered by Medicare Advantage, a group we believed was uniquely poised to adopt the education platform. By honing in on one of many existing pain points, we were able to demonstrate that we had done the hard work of prioritizing the biggest win for our client.

3. Make it beautiful.

The value of an aesthetically compelling presentation cannot be overstated. This will keep your audience alert and engaged. Straightforward, crisp slides with simple design elements will go a long way. If you want to take it one step further, don’t be afraid to get creative by adding illustrations and vivid imagery. Our team used hand-drawn illustrations (just stick figures – nothing fancy) to bring a typical HCV patient’s journey to life for the judging panel.

4. Know your numbers.

When it comes to Q&A time, it’s always satisfying to respond to a judge’s doubting question with, “Yes, and we have data to support that.” If you’re going to whip out that reply, make sure you’ve done your homework. While only key numbers should be presented, an appendix is a helpful add-on for all the numerical content that you may want to pull out of your arsenal during follow-up questioning. Make sure you practice speaking confidently about how you arrived at those final numbers as well.

5. Make it actionable.

Ultimately, judges want solutions that feel tangible – ones they can execute readily, with existing budget, and feel excited to promote to internal stakeholders. Craft a clear outline for how you’ll launch your idea, what money you’ll leverage, and what existing resources you can draw on. If you want to add some glitz, you can always build out a roadmap for how your solution might evolve and grow as you scale (three, five, or ten years down the line). In our presentation, we focused on a “pilot program,” and then shared a window into what a “full-scale” version might look like. This helped the judges understand our solution’s potential for immediate effect, and how that might translate into something bigger and more impactful.

6. Tell a story.

Business jargon and charts might seem impressive, but if the judges aren’t hooked they may miss the genius of your solution. Storytelling can be a critical lever for standing out and connecting with your audience. Share emotional and powerful stories of personas or real people you spoke with to demonstrate how this solution will transform the lives of customers and stakeholders. Coming full circle to our first tip: speaking with people out in the world will enable you to deliver compelling human stories.

One bonus tip to remember : be sure to make it fun! That may sound cheesy, but it’s hard to envision and build out a business solution under time constraints if you’re not curious about the subject matter. Find teammates you enjoy spending time with, and let your enthusiasm shine when pitch day rolls around.

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Eight Ways Case Competitions Can Enhance Your Business Degree

If you think a business degree is just about taking classes, think again. Schools offer students a wide range of additional hands-on opportunities to apply what they’re learning—and innovative case competitions are one of those activities. During these short events, teams of students are invited to analyze a particular business challenge, provide pioneering ideas and solutions to that challenge, and present them to a panel of distinguished judges, who are often senior leaders at companies from around the world.

But completing a business degree is tough enough; why add to your workload? Although they might not be a required part of your curriculum, case competitions are well worth considering. In addition to encouraging your creativity, case competitions offer the following benefits:

Case in Point : The Asian Business Case Competition , organized by students from Nanyang Business School in Singapore, is aimed at undergraduate business students. Cases are centered on an Asian-based organization; for example, this year’s challenge with the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore was to transform Singapore into a hub for sustainable recycling and waste-to-energy technologies.

Case in Point : The Champions Trophy Case Competition , founded by the University of Auckland Business School, brings together 12 undergraduate universities for a week-long event in New Zealand. The competition takes place over three preliminary rounds and one final round, and all cases are based on national business challenges.

Case in Point : Michigan Ross School of Business’s Energy Club hosts an annual Renewable Energy Case Competition every year in December. Teams of MBA students from around the world compete to solve one of the many significant challenges facing the renewable energy industry today. Last year the sponsor was General Electric, and teams competed to devise go-to-market strategies for behind-the-meter and grid-scale solutions for battery storage.

Case in Point : Aspen Case Competition brings together students from 25 different business schools to tackle a case study requiring innovative thinking at the intersection of corporate profitability and positive social and environmental impacts. Last year’s case looked at creating new corporate responsibility metrics for insurance and asset management company AXA.

Case in Point : IESE Business School in Spain and consulting company Roland Berger’s Case Competition invites teams of four first-year MBA students, with at least three different nationalities and two different languages represented, to work together on a business solution for a relevant and current case—an exercise that simulates the reality of a career in consulting. Experienced consultants from Roland Berger coach the teams and give valuable advice throughout the process.

Case in Point : Ernst and Young and the University of Notre Dame have partnered on the Annual Diversity Conference Case Competition for the past eight years. The case used asks students to examine diversity and inclusiveness, specifically regarding gender dynamics in the business community, and come up with solutions to a related business challenge. Cases are judged by professionals from the university as well as professionals from Ernst & Young, and prizes include 7,000 USD for first place and 3,000 USD for second.

Case in Point : INCAE Business School in Costa Rica and Nespresso work together on the Nespresso MBA Challenge . Every year teams of MBA students from more than 80 schools around the world generate solutions to a specific supply chain challenge faced by the company that year. The winning team travels to South America to validate their strategy, meet local stakeholders, and implement their solution on the ground.

Case in Point : The John Molson MBA International Case Competition is a round-robin tournament consisting of seven unpublished business cases. Students have three hours to evaluate a case, with no access to the Internet, and present their solution to a panel of senior business executives. Two of the seven cases are short cases in which both the preparation and presentation times are reduced, and a live case is given by a senior executive of a major company on a current business challenge they face.

Whether you’re already competitive by nature or could use some motivation to challenge yourself, participating in case competitions offers an excellent opportunity to engage in teamwork, get a real taste of the business world, and make memorable connections over a shared experience.

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The Importance of Competition for the American   Economy

By Heather Boushey and Helen Knudsen

Healthy market competition is fundamental to a well-functioning U.S. economy. Basic economic theory demonstrates that when firms have to compete for customers, it leads to lower prices, higher quality goods and services, greater variety, and more innovation. [1] Competition is critical not only in product markets, but also in labor markets. [2] When firms compete to attract workers, they must increase compensation and improve working conditions.

There is evidence that in the United States, markets have become more concentrated and perhaps less competitive across a wide array of industries: four beef packers now control over 80 percent of their market, domestic air travel is now dominated by four airlines, and many Americans have only one choice of reliable broadband provider. There are a number of reasons for these trends towards greater concentration, including technological change, the increasing importance of “winner take all” markets, and more lenient government oversight over the last 40 years. [3]

When there is insufficient competition, dominant firms can use their market power to charge higher prices, offer decreased quality, and block potential competitors from entering the market—meaning entrepreneurs and small businesses cannot participate on a level playing field and new ideas cannot become new goods and services. Research has also connected market power to inequality . In an economy without adequate competition, prices and corporate profits rise, while workers’ wages decrease. This means large corporations and their shareholders gain wealth, while consumers and workers pay the cost. The pandemic has further underscored the dangers of an economy that depends on a few companies for essentials, exemplified by the supply chain problems we face when a small handful of corporations creates bottlenecks for a critical product.

This is why today, President Biden will sign an Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy. It launches a whole-of-government effort to combat growing market power in the U.S. economy by seeking to ensure that markets are competitive. Because of the scale and scope of the market power problem, the President’s Executive Order makes the promotion of competition central to the government’s mission by dedicating the entire government to reversing these trends.

Signals that indicate greater market power

Even though competition is fundamental to a thriving and fair economy, there is growing evidence that, over time, markets across the United States have become less competitive and that market power is expanding. There are two kinds of evidence that indicate that there are widespread concentration problems in the U.S. economy. First, there is evidence that market concentration, as well as profits and markups, are rising across industries. Second, market-specific studies show that consolidation has led to harmful price increases, providing one of the clearest indicators of enhanced market power.

Alongside the rise in prices, which is both an indication of a market power problem and an important consequence for consumers, economists have identified two other important consequences of rising concentration: first, there is growing evidence that it is hampering innovation; and, second, research shows that it is leading to substantial concentration in the U.S. labor market—not just markets for goods and services, which has the effect of suppressing wages.

Evidence of rising economic concentration

There are numerous studies that show increased concentration across a large number of industries in the economy. In fact, concentration has increased in over 75 percent of U.S. industries since the late 1990s. These studies show that the largest companies in the economy have grown at the expense of smaller firms. While it could be that, in some cases, concentration has grown because firms with a high market share are more efficient or more innovative than their competitors, the prevalence across so many industries and the trendlines are cause for concern.

This is underscored by a set of studies that show that the profits and markups of the largest firms—indicators that many economists point to as aggregate measures of market power across the economy—have grown over the last 30 to 40 years. In a free and open market, we would expect new companies to enter the market and compete down these profits. However, these increases in the profits of large, dominant firms coincide with a decrease in business dynamism in the U.S. economy—with fewer startups launching and less labor market fluidity.

Consequences of increased concentration

While informative, national-level, industry-wide studies give little insight into whether increased concentration and markups are a result of decreased competition; that is, they cannot tell us whether or not the concentration is problematic for the U.S. economy. As mentioned above, on the one hand, industry-wide concentration can increase when a firm becomes more efficient or more innovative or when a national firm increases its footprint. [4] Similarly, increased markups can be the result of improved technology driving down marginal costs. On the other hand, increased concentration can also be the result of anti-competitive mergers or increased barriers to entry, which could also increase markups.

In order to figure out whether the patterns of increased concentration and markups are problematic, economists must look more closely at individual markets, since market-specific studies allow a more detailed understanding of the competitive mechanisms that are leading to these patterns. To better understand these markets, economists have done deep dives into an array of industries—ranging from concrete to health care . These studies tend to focus on what happens after two (or more) firms merge. Studying mergers is especially important because a merger changes market structure in a way that is not caused by a firm improving its product or becoming more efficient. Rising consumer prices following a merger indicate that a firm has gained market power, which gives them increased price-setting capabilities and suggests that the merger harmed consumers.

There is evidence from an array of market-specific studies looking before and after mergers that strongly suggests that consolidation has led to less competition and greater market power. These studies show that as market conditions changed, prices rose, indicating that firms had the capacity to charge more since they had—in these cases—merged with their competitors:

• One review of this literature shows that of 49 such studies, 36 found merger-induced price increases. Another review finds that the average price effect in mergers studied was 7.2 percent.
• A review of hospital merger studies finds that most of the mergers led to price increases of at least 20 percent.
• A study of a large health insurer merger shows that it led to a 7 percent average premium increase.
• A study of airline mergers in the 1980s finds that prices increased between 7.2 and 29.4 percent in markets where the merging airlines competed directly.
• A study of the MillerCoors joint venture finds that it resulted in tacit coordination with Anheuser-Busch, leading to a 6 to 8 percent increase in retail beer prices.

Looking across these kinds of studies, the conclusion is that consolidation does indicate a market power problem with the consequence that consumers are facing higher prices than they would if the market was more competitive.

Other negative consequences of market concentration

There is also growing evidence that market power negatively affects innovation. There have long been questions about whether market concentration fostered or inhibited innovation. Even decades ago, Kenneth Arrow argued that concentration hindered invention: “pre-invention monopoly power acts as a strong disincentive to further innovation.” [5] Emerging evidence points to this being the case today: one study shows that firms with monopoly power are less likely to advance technological changes; another paper focuses on the channel through which less innovation occurs in the presence of market power; and another study finds that while price markups increased after a merger, there was no corresponding increase in productivity.

There are emerging concerns that this effect on innovation may be affecting the economy more generally. In his book, The Great Reversal, Thomas Philippon documents that the increase in concentration across the economy is reducing economy-wide investment. Similarly, scholars are finding that greater market power is a factor in low interest rates and high firm financial wealth, but relatively little investment. If concentration is allowed to continue, this may dampen U.S. productivity and growth, limiting the future competitiveness of the U.S. economy.

Decreased competition in labor markets

As firms become more concentrated, they are able to push wages down, exemplifying another instance where we see the growing consequences of market power. With greater market power, employers have less competition for the best workers since there are fewer other firms. Such power in the labor market can be deployed in several ways; we discuss two below.

First, consolidation in output markets not only affects consumer prices, but also wages and working conditions as the number of employers in an industry decreases. For example, as hospitals have merged, not only have consumers faced decreased choices in where to get their medical care, but nurses, doctors, and other health care employees have had less of a choice of employer. In fact, a study found that large hospital mergers led to lower wage growth for nurses, pharmacy workers, and hospital administrators.

Firms can also exert market power by limiting their employee’s ability to change jobs through noncompete agreements . These agreements prevent employees from quitting and—within a certain time period—taking a job with a different employer who may benefit from the employee’s industry-specific skills. This translates into lower pay , as the employee has limited ability to deploy their skills elsewhere. 

In all, these uncompetitive labor market conditions are quite common —with 60 percent of labor markets being highly concentrated. Importantly, researchers have documented that uncompetitive labor markets are associated with lower wages relative to what a truly competitive market would provide. A meta-analysis of labor market studies finds that firms pay their workers less than they would in a competitive labor market, with the median estimate showing that firms pay workers 58 percent of their value. New work has also found that more than one in ten U.S. workers are in labor markets where pay is reduced by at least 2 percent due to employer concentration.

Signs that policy change is necessary

There is strong evidence that one of the reasons for the current rise in market power is a shift in policy. Antitrust enforcement has become more lenient over the last 40 years, and regulators have not had sufficient resources to enforce the laws on the books.

Antitrust laws are traditionally enforced by the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). They challenge anticompetitive mergers and other anticompetitive behavior by firms, such as exclusionary practices. The DOJ also prosecutes the criminal antitrust laws that bar collusive behavior, such as price-fixing.

To enforce the law, the DOJ and the FTC publish merger guidelines that lay out when a merger is likely to be challenged. Since the guidelines were first published in 1968, enforcement practice has become increasingly lenient.  

In 1968, in a highly concentrated market (four firms having 75 percent of market share), even the merger of two small firms (each with 4 percent market share) would be challenged routinely. Today, such mergers are almost never challenged; indeed, based on guidelines released in 2010, mergers are unlikely to be challenged even if they leave only four substantial competitors in place. The increase in these thresholds reflects, in part, the agencies giving more credit to efficiencies that might arise from mergers. At the same time that these guideline thresholds have increased, the level of purchase price that requires companies to give notice of their mergers to the agencies has risen, leading to a larger number of mergers going unreviewed—even as firms strategically acquire competitors.

In part because of these changes and because of real-term reductions in funding, Federal agencies have been bringing fewer antitrust cases. In fact, the number of criminal antitrust cases brought by the DOJ from FY2018-2021 has declined to an average of 22 a year, down from an average of over 60 cases a year across the previous six years. On the civil side, from 2010 to 2019 only about 3 percent of mergers that met the filing threshold have received “second requests,” which are a more thorough review by the agencies. When mergers are challenged, they are at the extreme, where four or fewer competitors are remaining.

Government suits enforcing the laws against anticompetitive conduct have also been rare. The DOJ’s lawsuit against Google and the FTC’s lawsuit against Facebook , both filed in 2020, are the first major Federal monopolization cases since the Microsoft case in 1998. [6] As the economy evolves with technology and “winner take all” markets become more important, it will be crucial to guard against anticompetitive conduct as well. These shifts have come at the same time that judicial precedent has moved in the direction of skepticism towards antitrust enforcement.

The Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy launches an effort to solve these problems

The President’s Executive Order establishes a whole-of-government approach to push back on decades of decline in competition. The Order not only calls on the traditional antitrust agencies—the DOJ and the FTC—to enforce existing laws vigorously and to consider updating their merger guidelines, it also directs all agencies and departments to use their detailed knowledge and expertise to ensure that their work clearly supports competition in the markets they regulate—including paying close attention to labor markets. This whole-of-government approach is necessary because the antitrust agencies are limited both by resources and the current judicial interpretation of the antitrust laws. It also relies on the fact that Congress has delegated authority to police anticompetitive conduct and oversee mergers to many agencies—not just the DOJ and the FTC.

The Order therefore directs or encourages roughly a dozen agencies to engage in more than 70 specific actions that will remove barriers to entry and encourage more competition. For example, the Order encourages the Department of Health and Human Services to work with states developing drug importation programs and to consider finalizing rules allowing hearing aids to be sold over the counter at a fraction of their current price. It requires all agencies to use their procurement and spending powers to avoid entrenching monopolists and to create new business opportunities for small firms. It encourages the FTC to issue rules curtailing noncompete agreements which inhibit labor mobility, preventing workers from switching to jobs that offer better pay and benefits. And, it directs the Department of Agriculture to consider strengthening its enforcement of laws designed to prevent large meat-processing companies from taking advantage of farmers.

The U.S. economy faces a serious market power problem which results in increasing wage inequality and wealth concentration, high prices, and stagnating wages. The President’s Executive Order relies on the full range of powers granted by Congress to address it, ensuring that the economy works for all Americans.

[1] When only a single firm sells a product or service for which there is no substitute, the firm is a monopoly.

[2] When only a single firm buys a product or service, the firm is a monopsony. A monopsony can exist in labor markets, when there is only one employer in a market.

[3] “Winner take all” markets are those where a single firm tends to dominate, even if the dominant firm’s product is only slightly better than the other products, and the market may have originally been competitive.  The market becomes more concentrated when the best performers are able to capture a large share of the market, often through technological advances. Walmart is an example in that it has been able to drive many smaller firms out of the market by harnessing advances in transportation and information technology in order to lower prices. This can also happen when the market has network externalities such that a firm’s technology is more valuable when there are more users of the technology; social media platforms or search engines are examples of such markets.

[4] There are some studies that show local concentration has been declining. This can be explained by large national companies entering local markets. These studies still look at broad industries rather than product specific markets.

[5] Kenneth Arrow, “Economic Welfare and The Allocation of Resources for Invention,” in The Rate and Direction of Inventive Activity: Economic and Social Factors , A Report of the National Bureau of Economic Research, 609-26 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962), p. 620.

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Business Case Competitions: Purpose, Types and Rules

A Guide to Case Studies and Case Study Analysis

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Business Cases in Business School Curriculum

Business cases are frequently used as teaching tools in business school classes, particularly in MBA or other graduate business programs. Not every business school uses the case method as a teaching approach, but many of them do. Nearly 20 of the 25 top business schools ranked by Bloomberg Businessweek  utilize cases as a primary method of teaching, spending as much as 75 to 80 percent of class time on them. 

Business cases are detailed accounts of companies, industries, people and projects. The content within a case study may include information about company objectives, strategies, challenges, results, recommendations, and more. Business case studies can be brief or extensive and may range from two pages to 30 pages or more. To learn more about case study format, check out a few  free case study samples .

While you are in business school, you will probably be asked to analyze multiple case studies. Case study analysis is meant to give you the opportunity to analyze the steps other business professionals have taken to address specific markets, problems and challenges. Some schools also offer on-site and off-site case competitions so that business students can show off what they have learned.

What Is a Business Case Competition?

A business case competition is a type of academic contest for business school students. These competitions originated in the United States, but are now held all over the world. To compete, students typically break into teams of two or more people.

The teams then read a business case and provide a solution for the problem or situation presented in the case. This solution is typically presented to judges in the form of a verbal or written analysis. In some cases, the solution may needed to be defended. The team with the best solution wins the competition.

Purpose of a Case Competition

As with the case method , case competitions are often sold as a learning tool. When you participate in a case competition, you get the opportunity to learn in a high pressure situation involving a real-world scenario. You can learn from students on your team and students on other teams. Some case competitions also provide verbal or written evaluations of your analysis and solution from the competition judges so that you have feedback on your performance and decision-making skills. 

Business case competitions also provide other perks, like the opportunity to network with executives and other people in your field as well as the chance to earn bragging rights and prize winnings, which are typically in the form of money. Some prizes are worth thousands of dollars. 

Types of Business Case Competitions

There are two basic types of business case competitions: invitation-only competitions and competitions that are by application. You must be invited to an invitation-only business case competition. The application-based competition allows students to apply to be a participant. Application doesn't necessarily guarantee you a spot in the competition.

Many business case competitions also have a theme. For example, the competition may focus on a case related to supply chains or global business. There might also be a focus on a particular topic in a particular industry, such as corporate social responsibility in the energy industry.

Rules for Business Case Competitions

Although competition rules can vary, most business case competitions have time limits and other parameters. For example, the competition may be split into rounds. The competition could be limited to two teams or multiple teams. Students might compete with other students at their school or with students from another school.

Students may be required to have a minimum GPA to participate. Most business case competitions also have rules governing access to assistance. For example, students may be allowed to get help when it comes to finding research materials, but help from outside sources, like professors or students who are not participating in the competition might be strictly forbidden. 

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How to Do a Competitive Analysis | Case Study Included

In order to be a leader in your industry, you need to know how to perform a competitive analysis.  A competitor analysis is more than a simple SWOT analysis where you find the strength and weaknesses of your market segment. Evaluating your competitors is highly important and must be done through complete market research using an analysis template like the one that we're going to present in this article.

Finding out where your competition excels doesn't have to be a burden if you have the right strategy and necessary tools.

What Is a Competitor Analysis?

Why perform a competitor analysis, how to conduct your competitive analysis, step 1. find your top competitors, step 2. analyze your competitors popularity, step 3. identify the public perception of competitors, step 4. analyze your competitors' social media strategy, step 5. perform an seo competitor analysis.

Competitor analysis in digital marketing is the process of finding strengths and weaknesses of your competitors, relative to those of your own product or service.

There is no exact competitive analysis definition. Yet, you need to know that the strengths within a competitive analysis are the things that make you unique, your key selling point, the ideas around your whole business - which can be about the product or the team. On the opposite side, the weaknesses point out some deficiencies, and things you could improve, when it comes to your brand, or take advantage from, when it comes to the weaknesses of your competitors.

The competitive analysis has the role to make a valid and accurate market positioning and a report on what you are doing best, and where your competitors excel, and learn from that to win more potential customers. A competitive analysis also means picking the right competitors and looking at analytics that include business metrics, digital marketing analysis, social media metrics.

By doing an accurate competitor analysis you'll be able to receive a lot of data and insights for making better business decisions. Similar to an internal research, by evaluating quantitative and qualitative data, if you research your competitors, you will uncover effective strategies and new ideas for increasing your business' performance, be it on social media, on online, or in the physical store.

A well-performed competitor analysis will allow you to:

• Build your unique selling proposition (the statement that describes the benefit of your offer and how you solve your clients' needs).
• Bring business improvements regarding products and services, team management, customer care, delivery and many more.
• Discover new market segments.
• Prioritize goals and future development.
• Create products that are actually required and respond to customer's needs.

For a better understanding of how your competitor analysis framework should look like, we've performed a competitive market research on the cosmetic niche. We've analyzed several metrics on this market segment to conduct a competitive analysis as in-depth as possible, with most of the data being pulled out from brand mention monitoring.

Brand monitoring, when done with the right tools, is more versatile than you'd think. Running an in-depth brand mentions competitive analysis could help you make sure that you are not overlooking any efficient strategies that might be working wonders for your competitors.

They are talking about your company

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Even though you might be aware of some of your market leaders, there might be a few you're missing.

For our case study example, we searched for top leading beauty brands. As social media is a highly important segment within this industry, one of the analyses we've performed was to find the top-performing brands on social media, by the number of followers.

You can also search on Google for the relevant keywords in your business and see the top brands that are ranking for those keywords. And use a spying tool to find out important analytics on every website you want, such as the Mozbar browser extension.

Also, check out Social Media to figure out the businesses that pop out in results in your market. The research we performed helped us understand the niche a little better. Therefore, based on this research performed, we've chosen to continue our competitive analysis on the following brands:

• MAC cosmetics
• Kylie cosmetics
• Anastasia Beverly Hills
• Urban Decay

It’s too complicated and actually impossible to manually track all your competitors’ records and activity, as much manual web scraping you'd be doing.

So, even if you know your competition , the question remains: how do you find who is the most popular brand in your niche?

Most popular = most mentioned

Tools like BrandMentions can make things easier.

Therefore, to answer to our main question, "how to perform a competitive analysis", you need to start performing an in-depth research of your competition. Brand Mentions allows you to track keywords, brands, product names or whatever you need.

Going back to the beauty niche we are analyzing, let's figure out the most popular brands here. We took BrandMentions for a spin, to find out the most popular beauty brand into a very competitive niche by analyzing and monitoring social media metrics. We analyzed the mentions for these beauty brands for a short period of time, October 14 - November 15 , Worldwide for all languages.

After analyzing the results, we saw that Sephora has some interesting discoveries. Compared to the rest of the beauty sites, Sephora has the highest number of mentions on web and social. In the printscreen below, we can see all mentions for each brand categorized by source (web and social).

By far, Sephora outranks the rest of beauty brands on the total amount of mentions on web and social.

The number of mentions could be explained by the fact that Sephora has more influencers that talk about it on Twitter. Results showed that the brand is mentioned by influencers with over 50k followers on Twitter compared to other beauty brands.

BrandMentions has a filter that allows you to filter mentions to see the Twitter posts from people that have a specific number of followers. The Twitter account for each brand was excluded.

Just by taking a look at your competitors and monitoring their brands, you can get a bunch of data:

• compare how often your competitors versus you post on social media
• what outlets mention them more than you
• how many mentions they have had in the last 24 hours
• how many shares their mentions have
• what languages are their mentions written in
• do they have mostly web or social mentions

And yes,  all mentions matter, but some matter more than others.

When looking into your competitor’s yard, look at their best practices and try to figure out what worked best for them.

You must have heard at least once people saying that all publicity is good publicity, as long as they spell your name right. Or that the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. But is it really so? How much does the public perception influence a brand's popularity? Let's find out!

The  Sentiment Analysis feature  allowed us to have a better understanding on the public perception of the analyzed brands. If we first identified the competitors and looked for the most popular ones, now we can have a look at how they are perceived in the online world.

How did we do that exactly?

We monitored all brands with BrandMentions as we said before, and from all mentions we started to filter them out. Filters are a blessing in this situation, giving you full control over the segment of mentions that you want to analyze.

Trying to manually find all the negative brand mentions that interest you is like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

After analyzing the sentiment analysis for each individual beauty brand ,we came to realize that most of them share a higher positive experience with the users.

By looking at the data, for all brands or just some of them, we can draw lots of conclusions. For instance, comparing to other brands, Benefit has the highest number of web and social mentions that have a positive sentiment analysis. If we look at the next graph, we can easily see that Benefits stands out:

Another thing we can observe is the fact that Benefit has the highest number of web mentions with a positive sentiment, as well. But the brand that is leading the positive social mentions is Sephora.

Even though Sephora has the highest number of positive social mentions, overall, compared to the rest of the beauty brands, it has the highest number of negative sentiment. Which might be a downsize for the brand.

Below you can see a comparison with the other cosmetics brand on positive and negative sentiment analysis.

We can see that most of the mentions are from social media and more specifically, from Twitter. The connection with the previous results might be stronger. Often time it has happened that people are more driven to write online about a negative experience, rather than a positive one.

We saw that the negative sentiment had the lowest value compared with the positive and neutral sentiment, with a single exception. Morphe had a higher neutral sentiment than the negative one. Check out the graphic below:

Urban Decay has the most naturally ordered distribution of the sentiment analysis for the mentions analyzed on web and social.

We are not saying that bad publicity couldn't be good publicity for some businesses or individuals. But for most businesses and niches, bad publicity and negative brand mentions are never a reason for joy but an occasion for a crisis communication meeting.

Another interesting thing to observe in the graph above is that Morphe has the highest negative sentiment analysis on social media.

People love it the most, but they also hate is the most, compared to the rest of the brands. If we look particularly at the brand to evaluate the total number of positive vs. negative sentiments, we can see that in the end, a positive experience overcomes the negative one, in terms of absolute numbers.

We've previously talked about Morphe saying that it has a higher number of neutral sentiments, the only brand with this particularity. We can understand that people have mixed feelings when it comes to this brand: You either love it or hate it.

Both positive and negative mentions have a big impact on the purchase decision of a client.

Although it might sound bad to   spy on your competition , this marketing technique is a fully transparent, popular, and white-hat one. How else would we all improve ourselves and our brands if we were to not compare our endeavors with the others? And this is where a brand monitoring tool comes to rescue us.

When doing competitor spying, we are actually building PR relationships.

Both directly and indirectly.

Directly by getting to know your common audience better (the one your competition shares with you) through your competitors’ eyes, win ties with important outlets in the industry, etc.

In addition, while keeping “your enemies” closer, you indirectly relate to and establish a relationship with them. By constantly trying to keep up the pace with or outrun the brightest ones in the niche, and struggling not to ever fall in the pitfalls of black-hat marketing techniques other companies deploy in their strategies, you simply get better and better. In other words, you widen your professional circle.

Competitor spying is the more polite version of eavesdropping. There's no harm in doing it as long as you're using the tools to improve yourself and not disrupt the other.

You can easily gain insights on your competitors' performance and   dig into their success strategies   and use the lessons to your own benefit.

Tracking mentions for your competitor can lead you into discovering social media campaigns, new content ideas, top-performing social channel alongside types of content shared on each platform, plus trending hashtags used and top influencers for each competitor.

For instance, in our case, in the beauty niche, the results might surprise you. If you thought Instagram would be the most used Social Media platform for beauty products, you might be wrong.

According to the analysis performed in BrandMentions, it turned out that Twitter has the highest number of mentions for every beauty brand compared to the other social media marketing platforms.

If you thought that Instagram was the king of the beauty industry, you are wrong.

Of course, Instagram is a powerful Social Media channel, but maybe there's more in that direction. There are some insights related to this social platform, nonetheless. We know that Facebook became stricter about sharing data with third parties, so we can't see private posts. Instagram has shifted the strategy in this direction as well. Instagram started to hide likes in select countries earlier this year, and it will soon do the same in the United States.

This method affects the way we see data, on top of the fact that there are lots of users with private user accounts where even if you have an account you can't see their posts, likes, and stories.

After analyzing all the social mentions for all the beauty brands on all social platforms, here's what we discovered:

• Twitter is the Social Media Platform with the highest number of mentions.
• Twitter is the Social Media Platform with the highest number of mentions with positive sentiment analysis.

It seems that Twitter is a great way to start an influencer marketing strategy; it is also the most popular social media site. Finding all the information will help all marketers, brand managers, and community managers to build the best social media strategies for beauty brands.

When we looked at the distribution of web and social mentions for the beauty brands, we discovered 2 categories:

• more web mentions: MAC and Benefit
• more social mentions: Kylie cosmetics, Anastasia Beverly Hills, Sephora, NYX, Too Faced, Urban Decay, Morphe and Tarte.

It's obvious that social is the king here. We won't bother you with tons of charts and data on all the analysed brands, yet, you need to know that within Brand Mentions you can perform any type of analysis you want when it comes to social mention analysis.

If we analyze one of the competitors, Morphe, we can see that it is more popular on Instagram by the number of mentions. It is seconded by a small number by Anastasia Beverly Hills.

Morphe has lots of mentions on Instagram, but it is on the 8th place when it comes to Instagram followers with 10.3m.

When it comes to answering the question on how to do a competitive analysis  we know that what matter most are the insights you get to find out. And here are some great insights we've extracted for the most popular social media beauty sites scrutinized within our competitive analysis:

1.  For the MAC Brand: 

• MAC has the highest number of influencers on Instagram.
• MAC doesn't have influencers of people with more than 50k followers that mention the brand on Twitter.
• MAC is the least popular on the web and social media judging by the number of mentions. 

2.   For the Sephora Brand: 

• Sephora is one of the most popular beauty brands on social media and the whole web compared to the rest of the brands by the number of mentions.
• Sephora is mentioned by influencers and people with more than 50k followers on Twitter.

3.  For the Morhphe Brand: 

• Morphe shares a positive experience on social media compared to the rest of the beauty brand. It has the highest number of social mentions with a positive sentiment.
• But it also shares the highest value of negative emotions on social.
• Morphe is the top beauty brand on Instagram by the number of mentions compared to the rest of the brands.

4.  For the Benefit Brand: 

• Benefit is on the 10th place by the number of followers on Instagram with 9.8m (see printscreen below), the last place compared to the rest of the brands.
• Benefit offers a higher positive experience by analyzing sentiment analysis for the whole web and social mentions.

After analyzing all the mentions for all the beauty brands, there are lots of insights to help you create social media marketing strategies and find out the top competitors in your niche.

Knowing how to analyze your SEO competition is an important step in determining your overall keyword and SEO strategy. There are many factors involved in the process, and without the correct framework, it can get complicated. Here you can find the steps for the SEO competitor analysis explained, as clear and simple as possible. Within the screenshot below you can see the main steps that you need to take to make sure you perform an SEO competitive analysis at the highest level.

What Tools We Used to Do The Competitive Analysis

We used BrandMentions to analyze the beauty content and all the mentions for each beauty brand : MAC cosmetics, Kylie cosmetics, Anastasia Beverly Hills, Sephora, NYX, Too Faced, Urban Decay, Morphe, Tarte, Benefit.

Each created project had the name of the brand, and we added the keywords, domain URL, Facebook and Twitter account for higher accuracy in finding relevant mentions. We let the tool do its magic and analyze the beauty content on social media and the web.

For the metrics and discoveries made, we used filters and features available in BrandMentions, such as Sentiment Analysis analyzer, web and social sources, mentions from Twitter accounts with a specific number of followers and more. Check out the data for designing your winning social media strategy.

Also, the trigger was when we found a research on Statista with most followed cosmetics brands on Instagram; so we thought of performing a deeper analysis on the topic, and finding the most popular beauty site on Social Media, not only on Instagram. We wanted to see if there more we needed to know. And yes, there was so much more.

For an effective competitive research, there are multiple things that need to be taken into consideration, beside web and social listening. Things like  brand awareness , customer experience, target audience, the search engines you are interested in, target market,  the service or product features, the competitors sales, etc. This is not a  complete guide to obtain competitive advantages  that applies for all. But a competitor analysis template that helps you best identify your competitors and your main competitor strengths and weaknesses.

The best time to start finding out information about your competitors is now. So even if you are a content marketer, a small online store owner or a big ecommerce business , an online marketing specialist or you're in the sales teams, you need to start digging into competitive intelligence.

Case Study Competitions- Details, Winning Strategies, And More!

Table of content: 

The abc of case studies, types of case studies, illustrative case studies, exploratory case studies, collective/multiple-case studies, critical instance case studies, 5 tips to boost your chance of success in a case study competition, a diverse and well-balanced team, research is key, work on multiple ideas.

• Structure Of Competition Presentation Content Is Important

Be Prepared For Answering Questions

Case study competitions are the best exercise for your grey cells which makes use of all your mental faculties as well as your decision-making abilities. No wonder this 'show and tell' of corporate operations and market studies play a crucial role in competitions across universities and corporate organizations alike.

These case study competitions have changed the hiring landscape across all industries with many more joining the league. Organizations conduct business case competitions to reach out to top talent and assess their management and leadership skills. These businesses often offer enticing prizes like pre-placement interview opportunities as well as cash prizes to attract the target audience. There are multiple advantages to these challenges, and many organizations have started conducting corporate case study competitions and hackathons as annual events.

Naturally, students from all streams across the nation want to be a part of this trend. You too can be a part of and win these competitions with the right approach. This article lists all the details about case studies, ways to approach a case study competition, and tips to increase your chances of success in them. Have a look!

Have you ever wondered what a case study actually entails? Well, case studies are simply teaching tools that enhance and test the practical knowledge of students. A case study asks students to make a detailed analysis of a market situation, an organization, or a particular situation/ problem. The students are then required to use their problem-solving skills to rectify the complications or come up with innovative solutions to the problem statement at hand.

For example, a vast majority of learning in management courses occurs through case studies and they form an integral part of the business school experience. These case studies could be related to any functional area of an organization. Such as a marketing case study, or a case relating to the finance, operations, HR, or IT departments. They could also entail studying the overall workings of an organization and then ask students to come up with a business solution that is the best course of action for the respective organization.  Note that the proposed solutions must be clear, evidence-based recommendations, based on in-depth research of the organization and the market conditions. These recommendations are meant to provide the company with solutions to real issues.

Now that we know the basics, let’s look at the type of case studies and their classifications.

There is a wide range of case study types and methods of classifying them into categories. These types are then further divided into sub-divisions depending upon the subject, situation, goals/ objectives, etc. But there are four most widely accepted types, which are:

These are also referred to as descriptive case studies. As the name suggests these start with the description of a situation that needs to be analyzed. They generally describe one or two circumstances to familiarise the reader with the business problem/ situation that is the main subject of the study. 

The readers then make observations based on the description provided, compare them with relevant theories, and come up with actionable recommendations.

These case studies are condensed forms of research studies that usually act as a precursor to much bigger studies with a deeper level of research. The main function of such studies is to find the answer to some pre-decided basic questions, which either prove or refute the need for further research and study on that subject. If the case study shows that further, more detailed research on the matter will be fruitful, researchers dive deeper into the subject matter.  

As the title suggests, these studies make use of different (relevant) studies from all points of time which aggregate into the case for a new one. The collection of various studies leads to better generalization and addition of information without the extra expense of time and resources. 

As the name suggests, these studies focus on a single instance or phenomenon. They are somewhat similar to collective case studies in the way that these also entail collecting data from different sources. However, in contrast to cumulative studies, here the purpose is not to make generalizations, rather it's to focus on unique situations for study. Such case studies are useful for finding the relation between an event and its cause.

These are the most common case study types. Now, a case study competition will require a group to work as a team and present their analysis and consequent solutions in a compact and effective manner to the judges. It’s a straightforward process but requires great thought and preparation in advance if one wishes to win.

Listed below are 5 business case competition tips to help you prepare for and win case competitions/ challenges:

Building a well-rounded team is critical when participating in a competitive case study competition. Everyone knows that a team that consists of members with diverse strengths, skill sets, backgrounds, methodologies, and competencies is comparatively better at thinking out of the box and coming up with amazing solutions. An ideal team, size-wise, consists of 4-6 people unless specified otherwise by the competition sponsors/organizers. 

It is important that participants possess great research skills if they want to emerge as competition winners. This is because they will need to conduct thorough research on the topic/ situation/ problem at hand to come up with winning solutions. What one lacks in knowledge can be made up for only through proper research. The key takeaway here is- to hone your research skills before taking part in the competition, both through study and practice. You should know how to conduct comprehensive research using all offline as well as online resources available for the subject of your case study.

You could make use of websites like Unstop to take part in online competitions and business simulation games in order to get a fair experience of the workings of such a competition.  

Putting all your eggs in one basket isn't the ideal approach when it comes to such competitions. It is best to work on a couple of ideas at the same time and then select the most brilliant idea of the lot and make it your primary solution. Other business ideas can be used as backup options if something goes wrong with the initial plan of action.

Note that while you need to come up with data-driven solutions, don't forget to employ logic and reason in your solution.

Structure Of Competition Presentation Content Is Important 

Presenting and positioning your business solutions is just as critical as coming up with actionable recommendations for the problem at hand. Because if you don't present the information in a structured form, you won't be able to convey your idea to the judges. Your presentation should be professional, crisp, and effective all the same time. 

Another important aspect of making a successful presentation is the person making the presentation. This person should have excellent communication skills and must be confident and approachable. It is not important for all team members to present and speak individually. There might be members who aren't comfortable making conversations with people or speaking in front of large crowds. Everyone has their own set of skills and it is best to play them to their strengths.

So, structure your presentation right, and choose the best speakers to go forward (if all the team members could partake in it, all the better). Also, it is better if max 2 members handle the computer slides at a time- clutter doesn’t look good.

The next stage of these competitions is the QnA round. Here the panel will ask questions regarding your presentation and recommendations for the problem statement. It is best to come prepared for this round, rather than being caught unaware.

So contemplate what kind of questions could be asked depending on your research, strategy, sources, presentation, and the final solution. Prepare well-researched answers for these beforehand as this will give you an edge over your competitors. Keep handy extra information like topic-specific graphs, charts, and previous studies which you can pull up in the time of need. Being prepared for answers helps you finish on a high note. Case study competitions require good team effort on top of individual dedication. If you wish to win, use all the help you can get. Unstop is a website that is dedicated to helping students in their academic endeavors and is one stop shop from where you can gather necessary ideas and experience.

Case study competitions are enjoyable and informative, they invoke team spirit and let the participant experience what actually happens inside a corporation. Look at it as a fun, active way to learn more, and be prepared for anything. Remember to stay organized, logical, and confident about your presentation, and the rest will fall into place. #BeUnstoppable

You might also be interested in reading the following:

• Meet J&J Imagivators: The Mavericks Share Their Strategy, Experiences, And More!
• Meet Team Secure- From Thinking of Dropping Out To Winning The 1st Runner-up Title Of Tally Codebrewers 2022
• Books For MBA Students In Every Specialization That Should Not Be Missed
• How To Win Business Case Competitions: The Secret Revealed

I am an economics graduate using my qualifications and life skills to observe & absorb what life has to offer. A strong believer in 'Don't die before you are dead' philosophy, at Unstop I am producing content that resonates and enables you to be #Unstoppable. When I don't have to be presentable for the job, I'd be elbow deep in paint/ pencil residue, immersed in a good read or socializing in the flesh.

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Leadership & Engagement Case Competitions

Case competitions give students the opportunity to challenge themselves to conduct strategic business analyses and discover creative solutions to real-world business problems while networking with various companies and industry leaders.

Participants of business case competitions are presented with a company or industry business dilemma, usually introduced as a case with supportive data and exhibits. Teams of student then work to create innovative solutions to the problems. The students’ presentations are analyzed and evaluated by a panel of judges on the overall quality, effectiveness, and feasibility of the derived resolutions.

Case Competition Information

Frequently asked questions, case competition faqs, what is a case competition.

Participants of business case competitions are presented with a company or industry business dilemma, usually introduced as a case with supportive data and exhibits. Teams of students then work to create innovative solutions to the problems. The students’ presentations are analyzed and evaluated by a panel of judges on the overall quality, effectiveness, and feasibility of the derived resolutions.

What kind of work is done for a case competition?

• Students most frequently offer their recommendations/solutions through a PowerPoint presentation.
• Check out the TED Blog link here for tips on how to enhance a slide deck. In this presentation, different frameworks and analyses can be used to support claims and assumptions made. Some frameworks/analyses used are SWOT, Porters Five Forces, NPV, Ansoff Matrix, Value Chain, etc.
• Some case competitions require specific analyses to be performed. It is important to pull these details out of the case instructions as the recommendations are built.

Who can participate in case competitions?

All business students are welcome and encouraged to participate in case competitions! Though it is important to be mindful of what majors and class ranks are required when building teams for certain case competitions.

Why should I participate?

Case competitions offer many benefits and opportunities. All of these can lead to internships or full-time job offers!

• Application of classroom learnings to realistic business cases and offer recommendations to solve real-life company and industry issues.
• Allows students to build their analytic and communication skills while understanding what it is like to be a business professional after graduation.
• Incredible networking opportunities with various companies along with resume boosters and new experiences to speak to during interviews.

What if I’ve never been involved in a case competition before?

Case competitions are designed to be learning experiences and do not require prior participation.

How do I find a team?

Occasionally case competitions require applying as an individual, but more frequently students will need to assemble a team. It is encouraged to reach out to peers in student’s classes and organizations to create a team that is diverse in experiences, backgrounds, and majors to help students foster the most interesting and thoughtful case solutions.

How do I prepare for a case competition?

No two case competitions are ever the same. Each one has a different set of expectations so every case competitions should begin with a deep dive into the case itself with team discussions highlighting the case’s requirements. Team communication and meetings are essential for case competition success. For further help on how to prepare for a case competition, please reach out [email protected] .

Case Competition Offerings

What case competitions are available.

There are many case competitions available for students across the entire country. Competitions Ohio State frequently participates in are outlined below:

Autumn Semester Opportunities

• Prospanica Conference, Career Fair & Minority Student Case Competition
• NBMBAA Conference, Career Fair & Minority Student Case Competition
• Fuels Institute
• Pi Sigma Epsilon Fisher Sales Competition
• Deloitte Battle of Ohio Case Competition (hosted by University of Dayton)
• Students Consulting for Non-Profit Organization Case Competition
• Net Impact Sustainability Case Competition

Spring Semester Opportunities

• National Diversity Case Competition (hosted by Indiana University Kelly School of Business)
• Accenture Innovation Challenge
• Ascend Case Competition-February
• Buckeye Undergraduate Consulting Club Case Competition
• People’s Bank Case Competition (Marietta College campus)
• Deloitte Start-Up Ohio State Innovation Competition
• Johnson & Johnson Internal Case Competition
• Delta Sigma Pi & Phi Chi Theta Case Competition
• Net Impact Crisis Management Case Competition
• Buckeye Capital Investor Stock Pitch
• Johnson & Johnson Corporate Case Competition
• Crowe Horwath Performance Consulting Case Competition
• Innovation Challenge
• TLA & GIS Case Simulation
• BDAA Data Fest

**This is a sampling of case competitions and is subject to change. Opportunities are marketed through student organizations, This Week in Schoenbaum, and the Office of Career Management.

Testimonials

“A rewarding aspect of case competitions is that they enable us to work on teams of diverse students from Fisher. In a world that is becoming increasingly globalized, it is critical to understand how to communicate and work with people of different experiences and backgrounds. Such communication skills will serve as the basis for a successful career."

“Regardless of the structure or length of case, these competitions provide me the ability to think creatively about issues faced by companies on a daily basis and encourage the entire team to apply their unique skills to solve complex problems. It is the thrill of finally coming to a consensus on a tough deliverable, or receiving a question from the judges that your team prepared for, or even just getting to know your team members over the course of the case that keeps me coming back.”

“Something that really attracts me to case competitions is the idea of solving a problem in a fast-paced team environment. Going through the case interview process for a few consulting firms this past year has highlighted how important it is to have a wide variety of ideas and approaches. I feel like every time that I’ve done a case competition, I’ve learned something new from someone else on my team.”

Interested in hosting a case competition on campus or inviting students to participate externally?

Contact us at [email protected]

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• Unilateral Conduct
• ICN Operations
• Steering Group
• Membership & NGAs
• ICN Recommendations
• International Cooperation
• Implementation
• Training on Demand
• Introduction to ICN Training on Demand
• Market Definition
• Market Power
• Competitive Effects
• Economic Analysis for Newer Agencies
• Introduction to Cartels
• Proving Agreement
• Cartel Deterrence
• Public Prosecutors
• Encouraging Cartel Reporting
• Predatory Pricing
• Exclusive Dealing
• Handling Merger Investigations
• Merger Remedies
• Competition Advocacy
• State Restraints
• Planning and Conducting Investigations
• Interviewing Witnesses
• Introduction to International Cooperation
• Document Review
• Project Selection
• Advice for New and Young Competition Agencies
• Introduction to International Organizations
• Investigative Process
• Building Regional Relationships
• Public Interest
• Public Affairs
• Origins and Aims of Competition Policy
• Characteristics of Competition Policy
• Developing Countries and Competition

Tips and Case Studies

• Working Groups

This online resource, drawn from the 2014 Benefits Report, has the objective of setting out particular means and messages for competition agencies when approaching governmental and legislative bodies. It tackles a variety of situations and dimensions, including advocating the principles and benefits of competition, raising awareness of the importance of competition and competition-friendly policies, communicating the need for legislative or institutional reform. It draws on various means of communication, formal and informal, direct and indirect, of communicating with government and legislators. It also includes case studies and examples from competition agencies around the world. This report is complemented by a set of messages and examples of communications by competition authorities in explaining the benefits of competition, and advocating the principles of competition.

For the purposes of these webpages, the Report has been split into four section, tips for explaining benefits (“why and how?”), broad themes, agency communication strategies and approaches to communicaiton, and case examples.

Why and how?

The importance of government.

It is imperative that competition agencies realise the significance of Government as a stakeholder and direct an appropriate portion of advocacy efforts at communicating with Government to ensure that competition authorities are able to influence policy outcomes in a way that realises the benefits of competition.

Adapting messages

Not all stakeholders are receptive to certain messages and means of communication. Competition authorities need to adapt their messages and approach to suit the specific stakeholder they are communicating with.

Selecting the most appropriate advocacy instruments

Certain advocacy instruments are better suited to communicating with Government – these messages and instruments should be clearly defined based on the circumstances of the particular jurisdiction. For example; it may be appropriate to communicate with the public through the media and website, whereas it is more effective to communicate with Government through one-on-one meetings. Where possible competition authorities need to employ advocacy instruments that best suit the stakeholder, as well as the sector at stake.

Frequency of contacts

The frequency of communication should match the significance of government as a stakeholder – frequent contact is imperative in developing a sound relationship.

Directing advocacy efforts

Competition authorities need to educate policymakers on not only the benefits of competition, but also when it is necessary to consult competition expertise in formulating regulatory frameworks or drafting legislation. This can be achieved through educational seminars and conferences that target specific government agencies and aim to establish a dialogue between Government and competition authorities.

Central message to convey to policymakers

It is necessary to convey the importance of competition and the role that competition agencies can play in Government achieving its goals. For example; competition authorities need to be able to convey the role that they can play in helping Government to achieve its public procurement goals.

Building relationships while preserving indepdence

For advocacy to be successful, it is important to be able to build strong and trusting relationships with government at all levels. It takes time to build the necessary trust between officials while preserving the independence of the agency, but good relationships and the building of trust between officials might be considered the cornerstones of successful advocacy.

Broad Themes

This section discusses messages a competition agency may find useful in advocating the principles and benefits of competition policy. It presents various arguments in favour of competition policy, including those most relevant to consumers, the public interest, industrial policy, economic recovery and poverty, as well as sustainable development.

Some of the themes and arguments further explored in this section of the chapter are listed below. Please note this list is non-exhaustive, and will be further developed.

Communication Strategies

This section discusses messages a competition agency may use in its role as impartial competition expert in policy review. Government departments and competition agencies can complement each other in maximising competition as a driver for the efficient working of markets, boosting economic growth. Policy objectives pursued through laws and regulations can unnecessarily restrict competition in the marketplace. Competition agencies are well placed to advise government departments about the impact of these restrictions and how to achieve the goals aimed for with less restriction on competition.

They can be particularly helpful in three ways:

• Positive use of competition  Policies which can be advanced by increased competition, such as public procurement;
• Limiting negative impact on competition  Policy implementation may create certain restrictions of competition, such as those needed to ensure air traffic security. Agencies are well placed to help departments restrict markets only enough to achieve their desired goal;
• Advising on possible competition impacts in related areas  Some policy regimes can generally be considered ‘competition neutral’, such as monetary policy. Here an agency can provide advice on unintended market impacts of otherwise benign policies.

The dialogue between competition authorities and regulatory authorities, Congress or Parliament is a key area of competition advocacy. Advocacy initiatives can be undertaken in order to influence the policy framework and its implementation in a competition-friendly way. For example, in some systems, agencies regularly provide impact assessments, opinions or advice on new legislation or regulation.

Case Studies

Case Studies: How Competition Agencies Influence Policymakers in Practice

The following case studies illustrate how certain competition authorities use different advocacy instruments to influence the decisions of policymakers across various sectors and within the constraints of different agency-Government relationships.  These examples also illustrate how competition benefits can facilitate the realisation of policy objectives such as economic growth, productivity and industrial policy.

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The Importance of Competitive Analysis

Home » The Importance of Competitive Analysis

How competition could be your secret weapon to success.

Often the key to success in any business relates to how you stack up against the competition. In fact, they might very well be why you succeed. Although it might sound strange, competition is often what drives production, development, and better service. In order to know what your competition is doing, you must study them. It’s called a competitive analysis, and it’s one of the most important tasks you can do as a business owner.

Today, we want to discuss why it’s so important and also how you can go about doing one.

First, 8 reasons why the competition is your best business ally

1. It helps you avoid becoming complacent. According to Entrepreneur Magazine , “Sole suppliers in an industry quickly stop innovating simply because they no longer have any need to.” Having competition nipping at your heels keeps you moving forward. It forces you to keep adapting, innovating, and improving in order to stay in the market.

2. It helps you create brand awareness . Competition pushes you to find ways to stand out and become a leading authority in your field.

3. It helps you develop self-awareness. Watching what the competition is doing well (or not well) teaches you to assess your own company’s strengths and weaknesses so that you can create more value and better service for your customers.

4. It encourages differentiation . Competition requires you to take and extra step to offer something more. You must constantly prove why customers should choose your company over another. “Differentiate your offerings with the goal of creating tremendous value for the users you serve,” according to Entrepreneur Magazine.

5. It helps you identify and take advantage of new trends . Your competition is often the best way to become aware of your industry’s market trends. This gives you an opportunity to promote an emerging trend that will have buyers excited about your product or service.

6. Competition can become an unexpected partner. Sometimes the best way to compete with someone is to join forces. Create alliances with other businesses in your field to exchange technology, knowledge, resources, tools, and market. You can also cross-promote each other’s products.

7. It leads to mutual learning. You will probably learn more about your market, customers, and trends by watching the competition. The knowledge and resources they have may be both better and different than yours. Learn how they manage, and then adopt the practices that work best for your company.

8. It can help you develop a niche . To build a profitable business, focus your efforts on conquering a smaller segment of the market. By narrowing your niche, you can develop a competitive edge that deters further competition.

8. How to do a competitive analysis

Step 1: Identify the current and potential competition. According to another Entrepreneur article you can , “Group all your competitors by the degree to which they contend for the buyer’s dollar or…group competitors according to their various competitive strategies so you understand what motivates them.”

Step 2: Once you have identified your competitors, you want to analyze them. Look at their business strategies, paying special attention to their strengths and weaknesses. Why look at both? Their strengths can serve as a guide to how you should do business. Weaknesses can show you where the competition is most vulnerable and help you find ways to exploit that to your benefit.

The strength and weakness evaluation should cover four areas, according to Entrepreneur Magazine:

• The reasons behind successful as well as unsuccessful firms
• Prime customer motivators (in other words, why did the customer choose them)
• Major component costs
• Industry mobility barriers

Step 3: Create a competitive strengths grid. This grid will include key assets and skills in a particular area, along with a notation of “weakness” and “strength” for each competitor.

The five areas should include: product, distribution, pricing, promotion, and advertising .

The competitive analysis is complete…now what?

Once you’ve finished collecting the data, it’s time to actually analyze. You want to look for a few things.

Market gaps – You can start to identify unserved or underserved gaps in the market. According to Small Business Chronicle , “A competitor map may reveal…that most competitors in the local area charge premium prices for higher quality products, while the bargain segment of the market remains underserved.”

Product development – You will soon learn what your competition has in development. You’ll also be able to see ways they are improving their product or service. “Knowing the directions competitors plan to take for their product lines can help a company develop products that trump competitors in terms of price, functionality or quality,” according to Small Business Chronicle.

Market trends – We mentioned the importance of spotting new market trends before. Your competitive analysis will not only identify these trends, but develop ways to exploit them.

Marketing practices – It’s not enough to provide a great product or give exceptional customer service (although if you don’t have those two things, good luck in succeeding). You must study your competition’s marketing strategies. Find out how they’re branding themselves as a company as well as their products. What channels do they use? How much money are they spending? You also want to pay attention to what customers think of your competitors. According to Small Business Chronicle, “What consumers think they are buying can be more important than what they are actually buying, and it is advantageous to know what consumers think about your competitors’ brands.”

With these tips of creating a competitive analysis, you will be better able to gauge what your competition is doing and determine how to do it better. If you need help developing competitive strategy, No Boundaries Advisors can help. Contact us today for a consultation .

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The Importance of Case Studies

Case studies are, arguably, one of the most essential components of any marketing or communications strategy. They may take time and effort, but the payoffs are well worth their effort and have been seen time and again, from organizations both big and small.

As Business Analysts, we’re often involved in creating or contributing to case studies, so it is important we understand what they are, the purpose they serve, and the benefits that they can bring. 

What Are Case Studies?

In essence, a case study is a report published by a company that highlights its approach to a challenge, the strategy used to solve the issue(s), and the effectiveness of the solution. It presents a holistic, in-depth review with valuable information about the costs involved, the expertise of the company employed, and the benefits achieved.

The Many Benefits of Case Studies

Case studies have a huge range of benefits, from insight to influence. They are used in nearly every industry, from finance to health care and they offer organizations the ability to convert observations into useable data.

But that barely scratches the surface of the many benefits of case studies. Let’s dig a little deeper and look at some of the long-lasting effects that case studies can have.

1. Boost Customer Confidence

Case studies are an excellent way to display your team’s skill and expertise in action. It’s one thing to propose a plan for improvement, or a solution to a challenge, but some customers may be skeptical of your team’s ability to follow through or produce the appealing results you’re promising. 

Case studies are exactly the type of proof they need to help push them past skepticism and into belief, and possibly, across the finish line to approval of your partnership. If it’s an internal project, case studies could be enough to convince decision-makers to pursue your solution to a challenge.

2. Improve Brand Awareness and Reputation

The reality of the world today is that every company in every industry has competition. Consumers are also becoming smarter about marketing tactics and messaging, so providing proof and backing up claims is essential for presenting your company as genuine in its promises. That’s where case studies come in. 

Case studies are social proof that the promises and claims that your company is making are true. They provide facts and statistics to show how your company improved productivity for your clients by ‘x’ amount, increased profits by ‘x’ amount, or implemented ‘x’ solution to combat a specific issue. 

Providing such proof of expertise bolsters your reputation and can increase brand awareness. Case studies can be published and distributed to current customers to remind them of why they partnered with you initially, and can help increase your company’s reputation and brand image as new potential customers discover you. 

3. Provide a Strategic Solution

No customer wants to partner with a company that acts erratically or thoughtlessly. Case studies provide insight into real challenges and an in-depth look at how your company goes about solving them. They give you a chance to display your strategic thinking and approach, your expertise and innovation, and your ability to follow through on your promised solution. 

4. Assist with Furthering Research

A case study helps show how different aspects of your business work together. They highlight a problem and how the executed solution provided value. They can also play a role in broader research. As you explore and analyze new ideas, other theories and methods can surface. This additional information can help you refine your strategies and further grow the value you provide. Case studies make great reference points that can show, not only how innovative, productive, and proficient your company and teams have become, but how trends have unfolded within your customers and services.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, case studies play a crucial role in the communication of how your team and you, as a Business Analyst, face challenging situations head-on and provide strategic, value-driven solutions for your customers. Once you have a better understanding of case studies and the deep benefits they provide to you and your brand, it’s easy to justify the time and effort that goes into creating them. As you create your next case study, use it as a reminder to take pride in the hard work you’ve done and the results you’ve achieved.

– Written by Jeremy Aschenbrenner, The BA Guide

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How Does the Competition Work?

Summary of the process.

• Students submit three-minute videos by the deadline of January 31, 2024 at 11:59 p.m. (PST) .
• In February, up to 10 semi-finalists are selected for the second-round competition by a panel of judges.
• With input from judges and GradPro staff, semi-finalists polish and finalize their presentations.
• On Tuesday, April 9, 2024, 3:00 – 5:00 p.m., semi-finalists’ talks are presented before judges and audience members at a virtual event hosted by Vice Provost for Graduate Studies and Dean of the Graduate Division Lisa García Bedolla.
• On the basis of these presentations, three finalists will be selected, two by the panel of judges and one People’s Choice by audience members.
• The first-place finalist will represent Berkeley at the UC-wide championship round in early May. The second-place finalist will be asked to be prepared to compete if the first-place finalist withdraws.

How to Submit a Video

To apply, you must submit a three-minute video of your presentation by 11:59 p.m. (PST) on Wednesday, January 31, 2024. To obtain the video upload link, please complete the Grad Slam APPLICATION FORM.

• Video should be submitted as an MP4 file, if possible. An MOV file is also acceptable.
• All video files should be named: “lastname_firstname_deptname.mp4” or “lastname_firstname_deptname.mov”
• At the very beginning of your video, please state your full name, graduate program, and the title of your presentation. The time it takes to do this will not be counted against the three minutes to present your research.
• You will not be judged on your skills as a videographer, and you do not need to use professional video equipment. As long as the judges can see your image, and the audio is clear and understandable, that is sufficient. You may ask a colleague for help in creating your video.

Eligibility

• All graduate students enrolled in a Master’s or doctoral program at UC Berkeley who are engaged in substantive original research projects are eligible to participate. Entries from all disciplines are welcome and encouraged.
• In cases of presentation of a collaborative research project, the presenter’s contribution to the project must be salient and clearly specified.
• One PowerPoint slide is allowed but optional (no Prezi or other presentation formats).
• Maximum of one slide, exclusive of title slide to be generated by GradPro.
• All work on the slides must be original to the student and cannot be generated by a professional.
• PowerPoint animation effects are allowed.
• Embedded audio and/or video clips (including but not limited to .gif, .avi, .mp4, .mp3, and .wmv file types) are not permitted unless they are deemed indispensable to the communication of the research topic. In that case participants must request advance approval for the inclusion of audio or video clip and provide a statement of justification in advance. Contact [email protected] in advance for approval.
• Props may be allowed with advance approval by the program coordinators, provided they need minimal set-up and produce no mess. Contact [email protected] for approval.
• Timing will commence from the moment the speaker begins their presentation. The presentation begins at the moment the speaker engages with the audience (if they start with a hand clap, a gesture, an audio or video clip or any other such engagement, prior to speaking, the clock begins at that time; if there is no such engagement the clock starts when the student begins speaking). If the speaker continues past three minutes, points will be deducted from the final score, beginning with one point at 3:03, and one point every two additional seconds thereafter.

Judging in the first round will be conducted by a UC Berkeley committee of faculty members and graduate students. In the second round, judges will be drawn from University alumni, staff, and other campus affiliates from varied academic fields and backgrounds. Audience members will select the People’s Choice finalist.

Judging will focus on the presentation and the ability to communicate research to a non-specialist audience. Contestants will be rated on:

• Clarity: Did the speaker provide adequate background knowledge to make the talk and the importance of the project understandable?
• Organization: Did the presentation follow a clear and logical sequence?
• Delivery: Pace, enthusiasm, confidence, body language, eye contact, vocal range, etc.
• Appropriateness: Was the topic and its significance communicated in language appropriate to an intelligent but non-specialist audience? Did the speaker avoid or explain discipline-specific jargon?
• Intellectual significance of research discussed: Did the speaker explain why her/his project matters (for example, its significance to the academic discipline or to specific problems in the world)?
• Engagement: To what extent did the talk engage the audience’s intellectual curiosity? Did it inspire the audience to want to learn more about the topic?

A panel of judges will select up to ten semi-finalists from video submissions received by the January 31 deadline. Those semi-finalists will be invited to compete before a second panel of judges and campus audience. All semi-finalists will receive at least $300, with the first-, second-, and People’s Choice finalists receiving cash prizes of $3000, $1,000, and $750 respectively.

The first-place finalist will enter the May UC system-wide contest (the second-place finalist will be asked to be prepared to compete in case of withdrawal by the first-place finalist). From among the ten UC campus representatives, a panel of distinguished judges will select three systemwide winners. For the systemwide competition, first, second and third place winners will receive cash prizes of increasing value.

The Berkeley winner stands a chance of winning cash prizes at both events, if they place in the systemwide competition!

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What Does It Really Mean to Talk about Tech Competition?

Photo: Emanuele Cremaschi/Getty Images

Commentary by Yinuo Geng

Published May 14, 2024

Advances in technological innovations have become central to the ability of companies and countries to compete. The importance of such technologies has placed the concept of “tech competition” at the fore of a significant swath of policy debates. But what does it really mean to talk about tech competition? That depends on who you’re asking and what you’re targeting.

Tech competition in the context of encouraging private sector innovation and managing potentially monopolistic practices of large dominant companies in the technology industry is one perspective. The Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice have now brought antitrust actions and suits , under the leadership of Lina Khan and Jonathan Kanter, respectively, against essentially every single major technology platform company. From looking at Meta’s acquisitions of Within, Instagram, and WhatsApp, to Google’s search engine and adtech market dominance, Microsoft’s purchase of Activision Blizzard, and, most recently, Apple’s control of its iPhone ecosystem, there is a clear focus on probing the powers held by the largest tech firms.

While some critics have highlighted the so far mixed (at best) results of the novel antitrust theories being used in many of these lawsuits, that is missing the point. The endeavor is to create innovative arguments (particularly theories around the downstream implications of vertical and nontraditional mergers) that can then be tested to see which ones stick. In a field that is heavily based on legal precedents given the relatively short texts of the Sherman Act , the two antitrust agencies do not need a preponderance of victories to shift antitrust norms—just a few judicially accepted arguments can create precedence on which to base future actions.

The sentiment that large tech companies hold too much power and can impact lives too readily resonates outside of the United States, too. Even before the turn toward scrutinizing Big Tech in the United States picked up speed, Chinese and European regulators (among others ) had intervened in markets to limit perceived harms to innovation, data protection, and smaller firms’ ability to compete. From fines and divestitures to delayed initial public offerings , the environment for Chinese tech companies has been challenging for several years now. Meanwhile, the European Union’s much-touted Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act are also clear indications of significant adjustments of the tech markets to change the calculus of private sector competition among tech companies .

But if this antitrust focus is one understanding of tech competition, it has the problem of being potentially in tension with a second understanding of the concept: that of the use of technology as a tool for competition between nation-states. This is especially central to the dynamics of the relationship between the United States and China, where technology is increasingly described as the main area of competition . In this context, the target is not firms but rather nation-states, and interventions by the government often veer toward decisions that promote homegrown firms and protect against foreign ones.

Much digital ink has been spilled describing the myriad potential and actual ways in which foreign adversaries can use technologies to weaken the national security of the United States, from the spread of misinformation to the collection of vast amounts of data to the ability to hack critical infrastructure. In response, slowing down technological advances of adversaries (for example, through some combination of export controls, technology transfer restrictions, technology supply chain friendshoring or nearshoring, and restriction of the use of foreign-originated software and hardware) while promoting the expansion of domestic technology companies has become somewhat of a national security prerogative. As U.S. commerce secretary Gina Raimondo noted at a recent Semafor event , in many ways, technology security is national security.

The resulting interplay between antitrust priorities and national security priorities has been perhaps best highlighted by the number of intelligence officials who spoke out against antitrust bills for fear that the bills could undermine U.S. tech firms. The rationale is that any limiting of the dominance of U.S.-originated firms through antitrust policy opens up space for non-U.S. companies and hurts U.S. competitiveness . It emphasizes the concern that, in the race for greater control of technology use and cyberspace norms, U.S. Big Tech would start to fall behind large Chinese tech companies in having the scale to develop and implement new technologies, whether in the United States or around the world. On the other hand, there are just as many arguments pointedly contending the opposite, that a dynamic and crowded tech market with many firms as opposed to a few big monopolies can drive U.S. innovation and prevent single sources of failure. Those resisting calls to soften antitrust ambitions accuse tech companies of opportunistically leveraging the national security argument while also claiming that it is in fact the interplay of many actors in vibrant markets that has historically enabled the United States and the U.S. technology industry to remain at the global forefront.

This apparent tension between antitrust and national security, however, conceals a third and more critical frame of reference within the tech competition discourse. This third aspect bridges the focus on company-to-company competition and the focus on government-to-government competition by being principally a question of whether the private sector or the public sector should take the lead to define the best ways to use and enable technology.

In this sense, rather than being at odds, both antitrust actions and national security impulses are in fact fundamentally emphasizing the same thing: that the government rather than the market is increasingly taking control of how and where technologies evolve, and that there has been a shift in the primacy of government actors over commercial actors, of the interests of politics and security over the rules of economics and markets, and of bureaucrats over investors when it comes to technology growth. This is a paradigmatic rebalancing of power between markets and governments within the narrative (previously driven by Silicon Valley) of technological innovation in the United States.

Nowhere is this particular framing of the tech competition story—as one of growing government influence competing and winning against private sector dominance—clearer than in the surprising restoration of terms like “industrial policy” and “data sovereignty” in the United States. The starring role of the CHIPS Act as industrial policy for semiconductor chips and the recent pullout by the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative from supporting free and open data flows in World Trade Organization negotiations can also be viewed from this lens. Such actions have surprised the United States’ adversaries and allies alike since they are discordant with traditional U.S. support for laissez-faire free market liberalism. They are, however, indicative of the growing trend on both the left and the right for greater regulatory oversight of Big Tech. Antitrust and national security are merely two of the main instruments used for this oversight.

The instrument of antitrust ensures that the government has more control over the scope of commercial activities available to tech companies. The result is that previously common activities, such as startups exiting through acquisitions by larger tech companies, are no longer viewed as simple business decisions and instead frequently trigger public reviews and require implicit approval by government agencies. The instrument of national security aims more at encouraging deeper collaborations with, and even a degree of co-optation of, private tech companies toward public priorities, in effect creating larger opportunities for certain tech companies over others for reasons that are not commercial. This has, for instance, motivated the return of manufacturing (particularly of chips) to U.S. soil and the intensification of cyber information-sharing engagements between government agencies and Big Tech. Working in distinct ways and with divergent implications for tech companies, antitrust and national security maintain their ongoing tension. Yet, precisely because both have value in shifting the balance of power between public and private influence, they are also interestingly both areas of clear and sometimes unusual partnerships across the political spectrum in a climate of otherwise stagnant bipartisanship.

While the trend is toward Washington exhibiting increased oversight and direction over Silicon Valley—a trend shared to some extent with national capitals around the world—there is ambiguity and more than a little diversity in thought about how that should ultimately look. How far should this government-driven approach go? Should it aim to be targeted , with industrial policies focused on narrow objectives? Or should there be a more systematic approach, one that reshapes not just the winners and losers of small parts of the technology market but rather reorients everything from trade policy to labor rights, given how much technology (and AI in particular) is changing societies? While governments have always intervened in markets, those interventions in the United States were inclined to be limited and restrained. As such, advancing an economic sector through broader government intervention and industrial policy is a little-used muscle in the United States (though some recent research has sought to argue that this may not have always been as unfamiliar). So far the various attempts have been inchoate and chaotic in messaging.

There is also a degree of irony here in the appearance of convergence with China , as the expectation of deference by the tech sector to government priorities is one that is familiar in Beijing. Beijing’s control over its tech companies has seen both radical limitations as well as supportive policies, leading to heightened sensitivity by markets in response to any and all government actions, including drops in stock market valuation and reputational damage. Erring on the side of aggressive enforcement, Federal Trade Commission actions have also caused stock market churn for U.S. tech companies, and congressional hearings have not been shy about dramatic public thrashings of tech CEOs. More troubling is the emphasis on tech companies having national identities and not just national origins. Whether it is TikTok or Microsoft, Huawei or Intel, tech companies are finding their multinational statuses becoming superseded by the two governments’ requests for and accusations of support of national goals. Previously a common accusation against China by the West, the sentiment that tech companies should help their own country has been expressed even in the United States.

Certainly, there remain sharp differences between the United States and China, but this seeming convergence of rebalancing public over private priorities for the technology industry has created disquiet and uncertainty for tech companies and for the rest of the world. It has also brought about a sense of fragility to the role of multilateral organizations like the World Trade Organization, whose work is made more challenging in the face of shifting national politics. Classical liberal economics favors minimal government interventions not because the market is always right, but because the market tends to be right more often than politicians and because there are unexpected (particularly global) side effects of government interventions. The sheer impact on daily life and the dual-use nature of emerging technologies also make it fundamentally challenging to know where to draw the regulatory line. As a result, the rebalancing has triggered much hand-wringing from thoughtful commenters . Regardless of the results of the upcoming U.S. presidential election, however, it is most likely that this shift will continue in the United States. The tech companies themselves recognize this and are attempting to influence it; they significantly strengthened their lobbying spending in Washington in 2022 , only to intensify it further in 2023 .

It becomes critical, then, to more clearly map out exactly what the new rules of tech competition between private and public interests should be. Doing so is necessary for two reasons. The first is to enable better cooperation with U.S. allies who need to be assured that their interests are not being ignored. This, in turn, would create more opportunities for the United States to shape better relationships with much of the developing world, especially countries in Africa, Asia, and South America who often have strong technology partnerships with China, though they remain both skeptical about Chinese influence and unimpressed with the United States’ inward turn. The second is to limit the possibility of competition with China from veering into conflict. Precisely because China sees the United States as converging with its views on supporting and controlling internal firms and prioritizing a broader definition of security, there are doubts about any real distinction in the United States’ talk of de-risking versus decoupling. If China believes the distinction is only rhetorical and mistrusts the scope of de-risking—and there are valid reasons to doubt the practicality of the distinction—then there is more incentive to attempt to aggressively seek advantage now.

The days of technology firms moving fast and facing little regulation is past. Governments now want to have a much stronger say in how, when, and where new technologies deploy. Rather than talking about tech competition as being between companies or between nation-states, the real crux of the debate is regarding the extent to which public or private sectors should dictate the direction of technological innovations. Fully addressing tech competition requires redefining and rewriting the overarching rules of the game for the technology sector, and this should be done in ways that do not cause surprise and alarm but are rather clearly understood and accepted by tech companies and U.S. allies and adversaries.

Yinuo Geng is an adjunct fellow (non-resident) with the Strategic Technologies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Commentary is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

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