In formulating business strategy, managers must consider the strategies of the firm's competitors. Competitor analysis has two primary activities, first, obtaining information about important competitors, and second, using that information to predict competitor behavior. The goal of competitor analysis is to understand, with which competitors to compete, competitors' strategies and planned actions, how competitors might react to a firm's actions, and how to influence competitor behavior to the firm's own advantage.Porter's competitive analysis' framework is based on the following four key aspects of a competitor, first, competitor's objectives, second, competitor's assumptions, third, competitor's strategy, and fourth, competitor's capabilities.Objectives and assumptions are what drive the competitor, and strategy and capabilities are what the competitor is doing or is capable of doing. This book is an illustration of Porter's competitive analysis' framework, it will be very useful for management students, management scholars as well as business strategy executives as it offers an overview of major strategic management concepts, as well as real case studies in competitive analysis.

Professional economists believe that the development of basic industries in general and the steel industry in particular is the best beginning step in the process of economic development of underdeveloped countries. This book discusses these positions by using the Algerian experience with the steel industry as a case in point at particular times, as today tremendous change can be seen in Algeria and in the rest of the world as far as the role of the steel industry is concerned. The iron and steel industry has been known to create the necessary conditions for sustained capital formation at a rapid rate. In addition to the savings in foreign exchange (affected by the reduction of steel imports), the other beneficial effects in the establishment of a local steel industry are employment generation and skill formation.