Explaining and identifying factors that constitute competitive advantage in organizations based on qualitative technique

Competitive advantage is a distinction in the characteristics or dimensions of any company that enables it to provide better services to customers than its competitors. In fact, competitive advantage is the value that organizations offer to their customers; in the way that it presents itself at that point; At that point in time, this value is not offered by potential and actual competitors, so it can be said that competitive advantage is directly related to customer values; In a way that in a comparative spectrum, no matter how much the offered values of an organization are closer to the desired values of the customer, it can be said that the organization has superiority and advantage over its competitors in one or more competitive criteria. The basic issue in relation to competitive advantage is to create or acquire it through the effective integration of environmental and organizational resources using the mental and intellectual capabilities of the organization and also how to maintain it through the organization's programs. As a result, executives with a better understanding of competitors and In the challenging environment of competition, relying on special tools and techniques, they can examine the information related to the capabilities, strengths and weaknesses of the competitors and choose the appropriate strategy and always be one step ahead of the competitors. Competitive intelligence tries to somehow involve the direct and indirect activities that the organization's competitors do in various fields. Based on the analysis of related articles in this field (review of 18 Persian and 41 English articles), we found 16 common criteria.