An excerpt from my day at the desk (during a SWOT analysis):

Strengths

1. streamlined activities / low-cost production
2. profitable, scalable, sustainable business model
3. innovative approach to problems
4. natural IP protection through time-linked growth in value
5. good financial control
6. application-neutral enabling technology

(of course, this latter is not completely true. It’s application-bounded in that it’s designed to solve a particular problem (the structured association of terms). And, the more we become experts in a particular method of solving that problem, the more we will make either/or choices about HOW to solve it. So it becomes even less application-neutral. Competitive advantage = narrow value scope. That will be a balance that we must play delicately, with an eye to the future. We want the advantage of expertise & focus; we don’t want be ‘fixed’ into an eventually immovable & uncompetitive position. We don’t want to be disrupted out of existence by something better!)