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Another key indicator of a competitor's goals, assumptions, and probable future moves is where its leadership has come from and what managers' track and personal successes and failures have been.
1. The functional background of top management is one key measure of its orientation and perception of the business and appropriate goals. Leaders with financial backgrounds can often emphasize different strategic directions, based on what they feel comfortable with, than leaders with backgrounds in marketing or production.
2. A second clue to the top manager's assumptions, goals, and probable future is the types of strategies that have worked or not worked for them personally in their careers. For example, if cutting costs was a successful remedy for a problem facing the CEO in the past, it may be adopted the next time a remedy is needed.
3. Another dimension of the top managers' background that can be imported is the other businesses they have worked in and what rules of the game and strategic approaches have been characteristic of those businesses. This tendency to reuse concepts that have worked in the past applies to senior executives coming from law firms, consulting firms, and from other companies in the industry. All can bring to the competitor a perspective and tool kit of remedies to some extent reflecting their past.
4. Top managers can be greatly influenced by major events they have lived through, such as a sharp recession traumatic energy shortages, major loss due to currency fluctuations, and so on. Such events sometimes broadly affect the perspective of the manager in a wide range of areas and can influence strategic choices accordingly.
5. Indications of top managers' perspective can also be gained from their writing and speaking, their technical background or patent history where applicable, other firms they come into frequent contact with (such as through boards of directors they sit on), their outside activities, and a range of other clues limited only by imagination.
6. Management consulting firms, advertising agencies, investment banks, and other advisory used by the competitor can be important clues. What other companies use these advisors and what have they done? What conceptual approaches and techniques are the advisory known for? The identity of a competitor's advisors and a thorough diagnosis of them can provide an indication of future strategic changes.
