Map Competitive Arena

Map Competitive Arena

For a defined industry, produce a strategic-group map (Porter) overlaid with the McKinsey Arenas-of-Competition framing where applicable. Output: competitive-arena.md that names the actual competitive clusters within the industry, what makes leaders in each cluster win, and what prevents firms from moving between clusters.

The discipline: firms within one industry rarely compete uniformly. They form clusters that share strategic posture (scope, channel, asset model) and compete primarily within-cluster. Strategic-group analysis surfaces that structure. McKinsey's arenas framing adds dynamism — in high-growth, high-dispersion markets the group structure shifts, mobility barriers erode, and winner archetypes multiply.

Iron rules:

• Every evidence claim carries a V/C/A/I tag — see ../_shared/provenance-tagging.md.
• ≥3 strategic groups identified. Single- or two-group analysis is almost always a failure of discrimination — see references/strategic-groups.md.
• 2-axis visualization mandatory (markdown table or coordinate notation). Axes must be uncorrelated, discriminating, and strategic-choice variables (not outcomes like share or profitability).
• Each group has a named basis of competition (the variable on which leaders win — e.g., scale, brand, channel access, data depth).
• Each group has a named winner archetype OR explicit statement "no clear winner archetype emerging" with reason — see references/winner-archetypes.md.
• Mobility barriers assessed per adjacent-group pair (≥1 named barrier per pair) — see references/mobility-barriers.md.
• If the upstream size-market arenas screen classified the market as Arena / Pre-arena / Contested mature, run the arenas overlay — see references/arenas-overlay.md.

Process

1. Intake — lock the frame

Confirm: industry slug, geographic scope, focal value-chain layer (same convention as map-five-forces), and whether the upstream size-market output is available. If working/market-sizing.md exists in the same industry folder, read it and extract the arenas classification. Standalone mode: ask whether the market should be treated as Arena / Pre-arena / Mature / Contested mature / Declining (defaults to Mature if unknown).

2. Select the two axes

Read references/strategic-groups.md. Apply the three-test axis-selection rubric:

• Discriminating — produces ≥3 visibly distinct clusters
• Uncorrelated — the two axes capture different strategic dimensions
• Choice-based — axes are strategic decisions firms made, not outcomes (no "share" or "profitability" as axes)

Default candidate axes: scope (broad ↔ narrow), integration (full-stack ↔ specialist), price (premium ↔ value), service (high-touch ↔ self-serve), channel (direct ↔ indirect), geographic reach, asset model (heavy ↔ light), data position (rich ↔ poor). Pick the pair that best discriminates THIS industry. State the axis-selection rationale in the output.

3. Identify ≥3 strategic groups

Place named firms (≥3 per group where possible) on the 2-axis map. Read assets/strategic-group-template.md for the visualization format. The 2-axis viz is a markdown table where rows = one axis, columns = the other, and cell entries are firm names. Cluster firms that occupy similar coordinates.

If only 2 groups appear, re-run step 2 with different axes — the chosen axes are not discriminating. If everyone collapses into one group, the industry may genuinely lack strategic differentiation (rare — flag as a Bar Test risk in output) OR the analysis is wrong (more common — re-axis).

4. Profile each group

Per group, write a profile block (≥3 groups):

• Members — named firms in the group
• Estimated size — % of industry revenue/volume in this group, tagged V/C/A/I
• Basis of competition — the variable on which group leaders win
• Typical profitability — margin band (high / moderate / low) with reasoning, tagged
• Trajectory — group growing, stable, or shrinking as % of industry

5. Name winner archetypes

Per group, name a winner archetype from references/winner-archetypes.md:

• Consolidator — wins via scale economics, M&A roll-up
• Innovator/specialist — wins via product/tech lead in defensible niche
• Platform orchestrator — wins via network effects, two-sided economics
• Vertically-integrated player — wins by owning critical layer
• Asset-light operator — wins via capital efficiency, partner leverage
• None emerging — explicit when the winning pattern hasn't crystallized (acceptable in pre-arena chaos, deeply commoditized industries)

If multiple firms in a group fit different archetypes, that group is internally splitting — note it; the group may bifurcate.

6. Assess mobility barriers

Read references/mobility-barriers.md. Mobility barriers ≠ entry barriers. For each pair of adjacent groups on the map, name ≥1 barrier that prevents firms in group A from credibly repositioning to group B (or vice versa). Common barriers: scale-economy gap, brand position, channel access, data-asset accumulation, ecosystem position, regulatory license, cornered resource, capability stack. Tag evidence where the barrier has been tested (failed repositioning attempts are strong evidence).

7. Apply arenas overlay (if applicable)

Read references/arenas-overlay.md. If the market is classified Arena, Pre-arena, or Contested mature:

• Note expected group-structure signature for that classification
• Identify which group (if any) is positioned to "redefine the arena"
• Flag mobility barriers that are eroding (Arena dynamics specifically erode barriers)
• Name the McKinsey arena (one of 12 current / 18 future) if the industry maps to one

If market is Mature or Declining, skip the overlay and note "Arenas overlay not applicable — market classified [X]."

8. Bar Test the analysis

Read ../_shared/bar-test.md. The two most common failures: (a) axes were correlated and produced a diagonal not clusters; (b) groups described but no winner archetype named. Both reduce strategic-group analysis to taxonomy. Fix before writing output.

9. Validate + write output

Run python scripts/validate_arena.py --output-path <path>. Checks: ≥3 strategic groups identified, 2-axis visualization present (markdown table), each group has a named basis of competition, winner archetypes named per group (or explicit "none emerging" with reason), ≥1 mobility barrier per adjacent-group pair, V/C/A/I tag coverage ≥6, focal-layer specified, arenas-overlay present-or-justified-absent, next_skills: YAML block at end. Write to working/competitive-arena.md (orchestrator) or standalone/map-competitive-arena-YYYY-MM-DD.md (standalone).

HTML on request (standalone only): markdown is the default and the only format the validator and the orchestrator consume. If the user explicitly asks for an HTML version of a standalone run, then after validation passes, also render the output via the html-output skill and review it per ../_shared/output-conventions.md § "HTML deliverables and quality review". Never produce HTML automatically.

10. Append next_skills YAML

End the output with:

---
next_skills:
  - assess-moat-sources    # firm-specific durable-power (Helmer 7 Powers) for group leaders
  - map-five-forces        # if not yet run — industry-level forces context
---

Omit map-five-forces if working/five-forces.md already exists. At least one skill required.

Gotchas

• Symptom: firms plotted on a diagonal rather than in clusters. Cause: axes are correlated (e.g., price × quality where premium-priced firms are also high-quality). Fix: re-axis. Pick orthogonal dimensions. The discriminating-axes test in references/strategic-groups.md.
• Symptom: "all firms compete in one group." Cause: axis-selection failure OR drafter unwilling to discriminate. Fix: validator rejects single-group outputs. Industries with genuinely-no-differentiation are rare; almost always re-axis.
• Symptom: "market share" or "profitability" used as an axis. Cause: outcome-as-input. Fix: axis-selection rubric in references/strategic-groups.md forbids outcomes.
• Symptom: group profiles written but no winner archetype named. Cause: drafter described what is, not what wins. Fix: every group requires winner_archetype: <name> or winner_archetype: none-emerging with reason.
• Symptom: mobility barriers and entry barriers conflated. Cause: drafter unfamiliar with Caves/Porter distinction. Fix: read references/mobility-barriers.md. Entry barrier = outside-in; mobility barrier = group-to-group within industry.
• Symptom: arenas overlay skipped despite upstream sizing classifying market as Arena. Cause: drafter treated arenas screen as size-market-only output. Fix: validator requires arenas-overlay section present (or explicit "not applicable because market is Mature").
• Symptom: "Big Tech" or "the incumbents" used as a group label. Cause: lazy grouping. Fix: groups labeled by strategic posture (e.g., "Full-stack premium enterprise vendors"), not by ownership or vague tier.

Rules

• Never produce a strategic-group map with <3 groups.
• Never use outcome variables (share, profitability) as axes.
• Never describe groups without naming a winner archetype (or stating "none emerging").
• Never skip the mobility-barrier assessment between adjacent groups.
• Every evidence claim carries a V/C/A/I tag.
• All file reads use encoding='utf-8'.

Old patterns

None yet — v1 (initial build 2026-05-18, Phase 2 sub-skill of analyze-industry).