Service area competitor analysis helps strategic managers structure their thinking to determine on what market dimensions they desire to compete, the specific organizations that are most like their own organization in a market segment, and what other products or services may be seen as effective replacements or substitutes for a given product or service (Ginter et al., 2018). Monitoring the actions and understanding the intentions and motives of competitors is usually difficult. There are many obstacles to effective competitor analysis including: misjudging industry and service area boundaries, poor identification of competitors, overemphasis on competitors' visible competencies, overemphasis on where, rather than how, to compete, faulty assumptions about the competition, paralysis by analysis. To avoid a focus that is too narrow, the industry, industry segment, and service area must be defined in the broadest terms that are useful. Also, as competition increases from non-traditional competitors, social activities, decor, meals, and housekeeping may become more important competitive factors. Misjudging how the industry, industry segments, or service area is defined will lead to poor competitor analysis. To add, in many cases, health care executives focus on a single established major competitor and ignore emerging or lesser-known potential competitors. Competitor analysis requires predicting how