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Muhittin Oral
Facultd des Sciences de l'Administration, Universitd Laval, Ste.-Foy, Que., P.Q. G1K 7P4, Canada

Abstract: The increasingly important role of global competition in shaping long-term strategies of
industrial firms has been recognized by managers, planners, politicians and academicians alike. This has
prompted recently an increase in the number of studies explicitly dealing with competitiveness analysis.
The studies done in this respect however are usually descriptive in nature, providing only checklists of
factors with few measurement guidelines, and hence difficult to make them operational. The present
paper is an attempt to meet this attested need by proposing a model-based approach to competitiveness
analysis and discusses its multi-phased implementation in a large glass company. The practice experience
gained with this approach indicates that mathematical models can provide an analytical framework for
the analysis of industrial competitiveness and can yield useful insight for competitive strategy formulation.

Keywords: Industrial competition; Manufacturing; Marketing; Strategy; Glass industry; Modeling

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