Understanding such variability can help companies invest more shrewdly and ahead of the competition rather than following others into the fiercest battlefields. Consider Brazil’s Sao Paulo state, where the economy is larger than all of Argentina’s, competitive intensity is high, and retail prices are lower than elsewhere in the country. By contrast, in Brazil’s northeast—the populous but historically poorest part of the country—the economy is growing much faster, competition is lighter, and prices are higher. Multinationals short on granular insights and capabilities tended to flock to Sao Paulo and to miss the opportunities in the northeast. It’s only recently that they’ve started investing heavily there—trying to catch up with regional companies in what is often described as Brazil’s “new growth frontier.”