Once there is competition, customers have a choice. Once customers have a choice, companies need to consider, “Why should they buy from us?” In today’s environment, hyper-competition comes into play.
Hyper-competition stems from customers wanting the products or services faster, cheaper, and in their way. This fundamental quantitative and qualitative shift in competition requires a company to change on an unprecedented scale. A company must constantly reinvent more efficient organizational strategies to be at the forefront of the leading edge. The competitive rules of the game are in such flux that only the most adaptive and agile companies will survive.
A sustainable competitive advantage is the focal point of a company’s strategy. This focus allows the maintenance and improvement of a company’s competitive position in the market, and it truly is the leading edge company.
Leadership Positioning – On the Edge!
When leadership positioning and instant association are understood, it’s time to establish your competitive edge advantage. To do this, determine what the competition is doing in the same marketplace and what their competitive strengths and weaknesses are.
Getting started with competitive advantage research:
• Who are the competitors? List five to ten who do the best job of attracting the customers you want to attract.
• What threats do the competitors pose?
• What are the profiles of the competitors? (i.e., an in-depth description of the competitor’s background, finances, products, market segments, facilities, staff, and strategies)
• What are their objectives? • What strategies are the competitors pursuing and how successful are these strategies?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors?
• How do their prices compare to yours?
• How are they doing overall in the market share? (i.e., percentage or portion of the total available market share or market segment)
• How do you plan to compete with your competitors?
• Do the competitors offer better quality products and/or services?
• How are you uniquely suited to compete with the competitors?
• What customer needs and preferences are you competing to meet?
• What are the similarities and differences between the competitors’ products and/or services and yours?
• How are the competitors likely to respond to any changes in the way you do business?
You can probably think of many more pieces of information about the competitors that would be useful. However, an important challenge in competitor analysis is working out how to obtain competitor information that is reliable, up to date, and available legally!
Step 1: Identify main competitors and compile questions when undertaking competitor analysis
How do you stack up against your competition? Know and understand main competitors. Secondly, how effective are the competitors in the marketplace and what is your competitive standing in the target markets? Once you can answer these things about the main competitors, you can determine how to compete better.
Step 2: Evaluate the competitions’ positioning as well as their major strengths and weaknesses
Put this on a grid and evaluate on a consistent basis, whatever that may be for your company. If you have an annual strategic plan, then do this annually. If you are analyzing data quarterly, then evaluate quarterly.
Step 3: Determine your company’s competitive effectiveness and decide where you rank among the competitors listed in Step 1
When evaluating your own business, be brutally honest about weaknesses and list the strengths that are perceived as strengths by the marketplace. It may be surprising to see how much more insight this evaluation of your business will provide after an inside reality check on your own business is performed.
To be a successful company, the inside reality MUST match the outside perception of potential customers. Competitive analysis is an important part of the overall strategic planning process. Why should you bother to analyze competitors? Some businesses think it is best to ignore the competition and get on with their own plans of running their company. Other companies become obsessed with tracking the actions of competitors (often using underhanded or illegal methods). Some businesses are happy simply to track the competition, copy their moves, and react to changes. Do you know as much about the competition as they might know regarding your company?
Competitor analysis has several important roles in your overall strategic planning:
• Helps owners and managers understand their competitive advantages and disadvantages.
• Helps generate a true understanding of competitors’ past and present, and (most importantly) an educated guess toward their future strategies.
• Provides an informed basis to develop competitive strategies to achieve an advantage for future growth.
• Helps forecast the returns that may be made from future investments. (i.e., How will competitors respond to a new product or pricing strategy?)
When I first went into business, it was important to me, as the founder and CEO to differentiate our business from the competition. In the beginning, it was easy, but as years have passed and we have developed a brand identity and won many national awards, I have watched competitors go after the same awards, say the same things, and copy our innovation. A very dear business friend of mine, Matt Rix of Mattrixx.com, once said, “It’s always safer and easier to be in the number two position in your industry. This is because you can follow and copy what has already been successful without assuming the risk of potential failure.”
The downside of this is that you will never be able to capture or control a market share by being a follower. Followers are never leaders. You have the choice to be the innovator or the follower but you cannot be both. It took me a long time to realize what this meant.
What he was saying was that being the innovator is great in the mind-set of our potential customers, but our competition can sit back and watch how we innovate and see what works and what does not and then copy what we do without taking the risk. Always look to be the innovator, even though being a risk taker can be stressful at times. Seek to be, and to be known as, the business others copy.
DJ Heckes,
Author & CEO EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
www.exhib-it.com
Full BRAIN Marketing
www.fullbrainmarketing.com
Share
Bookmark this on Delicious
Hyper-competition stems from customers wanting the products or services faster, cheaper, and in their way. This fundamental quantitative and qualitative shift in competition requires a company to change on an unprecedented scale. A company must constantly reinvent more efficient organizational strategies to be at the forefront of the leading edge. The competitive rules of the game are in such flux that only the most adaptive and agile companies will survive.
A sustainable competitive advantage is the focal point of a company’s strategy. This focus allows the maintenance and improvement of a company’s competitive position in the market, and it truly is the leading edge company.
Leadership Positioning – On the Edge!
When leadership positioning and instant association are understood, it’s time to establish your competitive edge advantage. To do this, determine what the competition is doing in the same marketplace and what their competitive strengths and weaknesses are.
Getting started with competitive advantage research:
• Who are the competitors? List five to ten who do the best job of attracting the customers you want to attract.
• What threats do the competitors pose?
• What are the profiles of the competitors? (i.e., an in-depth description of the competitor’s background, finances, products, market segments, facilities, staff, and strategies)
• What are their objectives? • What strategies are the competitors pursuing and how successful are these strategies?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors?
• How do their prices compare to yours?
• How are they doing overall in the market share? (i.e., percentage or portion of the total available market share or market segment)
• How do you plan to compete with your competitors?
• Do the competitors offer better quality products and/or services?
• How are you uniquely suited to compete with the competitors?
• What customer needs and preferences are you competing to meet?
• What are the similarities and differences between the competitors’ products and/or services and yours?
• How are the competitors likely to respond to any changes in the way you do business?
You can probably think of many more pieces of information about the competitors that would be useful. However, an important challenge in competitor analysis is working out how to obtain competitor information that is reliable, up to date, and available legally!
Step 1: Identify main competitors and compile questions when undertaking competitor analysis
How do you stack up against your competition? Know and understand main competitors. Secondly, how effective are the competitors in the marketplace and what is your competitive standing in the target markets? Once you can answer these things about the main competitors, you can determine how to compete better.
Step 2: Evaluate the competitions’ positioning as well as their major strengths and weaknesses
Put this on a grid and evaluate on a consistent basis, whatever that may be for your company. If you have an annual strategic plan, then do this annually. If you are analyzing data quarterly, then evaluate quarterly.
Step 3: Determine your company’s competitive effectiveness and decide where you rank among the competitors listed in Step 1
When evaluating your own business, be brutally honest about weaknesses and list the strengths that are perceived as strengths by the marketplace. It may be surprising to see how much more insight this evaluation of your business will provide after an inside reality check on your own business is performed.
To be a successful company, the inside reality MUST match the outside perception of potential customers. Competitive analysis is an important part of the overall strategic planning process. Why should you bother to analyze competitors? Some businesses think it is best to ignore the competition and get on with their own plans of running their company. Other companies become obsessed with tracking the actions of competitors (often using underhanded or illegal methods). Some businesses are happy simply to track the competition, copy their moves, and react to changes. Do you know as much about the competition as they might know regarding your company?
Competitor analysis has several important roles in your overall strategic planning:
• Helps owners and managers understand their competitive advantages and disadvantages.
• Helps generate a true understanding of competitors’ past and present, and (most importantly) an educated guess toward their future strategies.
• Provides an informed basis to develop competitive strategies to achieve an advantage for future growth.
• Helps forecast the returns that may be made from future investments. (i.e., How will competitors respond to a new product or pricing strategy?)
When I first went into business, it was important to me, as the founder and CEO to differentiate our business from the competition. In the beginning, it was easy, but as years have passed and we have developed a brand identity and won many national awards, I have watched competitors go after the same awards, say the same things, and copy our innovation. A very dear business friend of mine, Matt Rix of Mattrixx.com, once said, “It’s always safer and easier to be in the number two position in your industry. This is because you can follow and copy what has already been successful without assuming the risk of potential failure.”
The downside of this is that you will never be able to capture or control a market share by being a follower. Followers are never leaders. You have the choice to be the innovator or the follower but you cannot be both. It took me a long time to realize what this meant.
What he was saying was that being the innovator is great in the mind-set of our potential customers, but our competition can sit back and watch how we innovate and see what works and what does not and then copy what we do without taking the risk. Always look to be the innovator, even though being a risk taker can be stressful at times. Seek to be, and to be known as, the business others copy.
DJ Heckes,
Author & CEO EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts
www.exhib-it.com
Full BRAIN Marketing
www.fullbrainmarketing.com
Share
Bookmark this on Delicious
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