SET OF QUESTIONS TO EXTERNAL MAPPING

Which companies define your sector’s periphery today?
Which business strategies are they pursuing? In what are different these strategies in respect to those you are pursuing nowadays? What kind of approaches offer the highest potential? Which of them represent the most relevant threat?
When examining the periphery from the client/customer perspective, which new benefits are provided to client/customers by the companies acting at the periphery of the sector? When it will be economically feasible to provide these benefits?
When examining the periphery from the perspective of the competitors (located in the middle of the sector), who of them are more vulnerable to an attack? How will be realized the attack? When? Which will be the consequences of an attack to main clients? Which will be the consequences for prices? And for revenues, profit and value creation? And for human capital? Are there reprisal opportunities?
After having examined the periphery’s implications from clients and competitors points of view, which of the competitors seem to be able to have success? Which of them are more likely to loose and why?
Which are the economic implications of eventual changes in the competitive landscape in terms of market shares, prices, profits, human capital compartment and value creation inside your sector?
Which are the implications for your own company? Which are the options you have?

CLASS	A
PHASE	External Mapping
APPLICATION FIELDS	Strategic Planning, R&D, Investment decisions
ASSUMPTIONS	The economy’s nebulous mass is located at the periphery of the sectors, instead of in the middle. It is at the periphery, where new companies arise to exploit unsatisfied or unknown needs and to capitalize new capabilities, new technologies and new business logics. Periphery is a fundamental part of what Schumpeter (1955) called “creative destruction winds”.
PROS	This set of questions is useful to help companies to define, analyze and interpret their periphery .
CONS	To answer these questions, new additional information will be necessary. To evaluate the implications of this new collected information will require additional time resources. However, it is important to stress the successful efforts, instead of those that will be unsuccessful.
DESCRIPTION	Foster and Kaplan elaborated the following set of questions to help companies to define, analyze and interpret their periphery . Which companies define your sector’s periphery today? Which business strategies are they pursuing? In what are different these strategies in respect to those you are pursuing nowadays? What kind of approaches offer the highest potential? Which of them represent the most relevant threat? When examining the periphery from the client/customer perspective, which new benefits are provided to client/customers by the companies acting at the periphery of the sector? When it will be economically feasible to provide these benefits? When examining the periphery from the perspective of the competitors (located in the middle of the sector), who of them are more vulnerable to an attack? How will be realized the attack? When? Which will be the consequences of an attack to main clients? Which will be the consequences for prices? And for revenues, profit and value creation? And for human capital? Are there reprisal opportunities? After having examined the periphery’s implications from clients and competitors points of view, which of the competitors seem to be able to have success? Which of them are more likely to loose and why? Which are the economic implications of eventual changes in the competitive landscape in terms of market shares, prices, profits, human capital compartment and value creation inside your sector? Which are the implications for your own company? Which are the options you have?
REFERENCES	Foster R. N., Kaplan S., Creative Destruction: Why Companies That Are Built to Last Underperform the Market – and How to Successfully Transform Them, Currency Doubleday, 2001