The Global Advantage Diamond from BCG looks useful to diagnose competitive advantage in rapidly developing economies (RDEs). It maps four issues – market access, resource access, local adaptation and network coordination – to produce a diamond map relative strengths of you and competitors. From your starting position, you can identify where you need to get to on each dimension, and thus set strategic priorities. Local firms, it is claimed, are stronger on resource access and local coordination, while multinational challengers are stronger on market access and network coordination.
Nice concept, and BCG probably have intensive analytical tools to assess your rating on the 4 dimensions, but I fear that in practice it will join the list of qualitative and subjective ‘methods’ that seem to make sense, but don’t give much real value. It is hardly a great insight, for example, for a would-be multinational entrant to a RDE to discover it needs to focus on local adaptation of its products.