The Monitor has been established by initiative of CFMT- Centro Formazione Management del Terziario. It aims at monitoring the competitiveness of companies and clusters operating in the wide and diversified Italian service industry, while providing them with tools, solutions and competitiveness benchmarks, as well as opportunities for knowledge sharing and training. The Monitor will concentrate on the following activities: an annual research, based on primary and secondary sources, inspired by Professor M.E. Porter’s model on the determinants of competitiveness. The research will focus on three main analysis: business environment, cluster and company strategies; an event, organised in collaboration with CFMT, to present the annual report with the results of Monitor’s activities; identify and share best practices, training and management solutions to understand the competitiveness determinants of the service industry, reconsider strategic and management models, and figure out the key competences to boost entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship. Methodology The business environment will be analysed following the first Italian edition of the "Harvard Business School U.S. Competitiveness Survey". Clusters will be studied in co-operation with Richard Bryden, Project Director of U.S. Cluster mapping project at the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness of Harvard Business School. Companies’ competitiveness will be assessed through a sample including just the highly-competitive companies of the service industry (i.e. ROI = +50% on the industry average for three years in a row).