Blindspots Analysis

Blindspots analysis (also blind spots analysis) is a method aimed at uncovering obsolete assumptions in a decision maker’s mental scheme of the environment.

Michael Porter used the term "blind spots" to refer to conventional wisdom which no longer holds true, but which still guides business strategy. The concept was further popularized by Barbara Tuchman, in her 1984 book, The March of Folly, to describe political decisions and strategies which were clearly wrong in their assumptions.

The following method for uncovering blind spots was fully developed by Ben Gilad in his book, Business Blindspots. The Gilad method consists of three steps:

Step One: Conducting a Porter’s Industry Structure – aka 5 force analysis on a given industry or segment (market), augmented with identification of possible change drivers, which are defined as trends with the potential to have profound (structural) effect on the balance of power among the five forces.

Step Two: Collecting competitive intelligence on the target company’s top executives assumptions regarding the same industry structure as in Step One. Sources may include annual reports' letters to shareholders, autobiographies, interviews in the press, public appearances and speeches, industry meetings, congressional testimonies, conference calls with security analysts (transcripts are publicly available), and all other statements regarding vision and beliefs. An alternative technique is known among competitive intelligence professionals as “strategy’s reverse engineering” which looks for the underlying assumptions which can rationalize existing strategy.

Step Three: Compare the results of Step Two with the analysis in Step One. Any contradiction with the analysis in Step One is a potential blindspot.