Strengths and Weaknesses are the attributes of the organization, for example, resources and capabilities, service quality, operating leverage and so on.

Distinctive Competencies are the perspectives, positions, plans and patterns received from a business strategy.

In the Business Strategy, questions such as "How will the Service Provider know when it is successful?" and "When must those factors be achieved?" must be asked.

Critical success factors include competitive thinking about issues such as the vulnerability to substitution of the service provider and likely means to outperform competing alternatives.