Focusing on competitors has worked well in the past, and it might still work in some situations, but it has become less applicable for companies competing in markets threatened with disruption. Traditional corporate strategy assumed a situation in which companies faced only one or a few competitors, and in which opponents’ actions were somewhat predictable. Under such conditions, competition really did bear more similarity to a chess match or to warfare. In today’s markets, incumbents across many industries often square off against not one or two large and predictable opponents, but dozens
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