Before any competitive analysis can be done, it is critical to identify and understand who the Competitors are.  Competitors are any Party playing a PartyRole that offers ProductOfferings similar to the enterprise’s ProductOfferings in a MarketSegment.  Once a Competitor is identified and targeted, an “owner” PartyRole is established. The owner maintains information about a Competitor.  The owner is notified whenever additional information about the owner’s Competitor is obtained.<br/>Competitors are also placed into “tiers”.  This placement varies depending on the MarketSegment.  Examples of Competitor tiers include:<br/><ul>
<li>Private line versus switched</li><li>Small, medium, large</li><li>Vertical (consumer, business, carrier)</li><li>Horizontal (size, usage, customer)</li></ul>
An enterprise may wish to perform Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat (SWOT) analysis on a Competitor. SWOT analysis is a formal framework of identifying and framing organizational growth opportunities. Additional information about SWOT Analysis can be found via an Internet search.<br/>The figure below shows the model for basic Competitor business entities.<br/>