Why it is important to conduct a competitors analysis
H.E Mavis Amankwah BEM UN Ambassador - Award Winning Serial Entrepreneur
Experienced Public Speaker and Diversity & Funding Specialist with a proven track record of raising over ￡18.5 million for CICs, charities, & social enterprises.
Always conduct competitor analysis
Conducting competitor analysis can help you assess the strengths and weaknesses of your existing and potential competitors. This can help you identify opportunities and threats in your industry sector. A detailed competitor analysis will play several important roles in your strategic planning. You’ll better understand your competitive advantages and disadvantages in relation to your competitors. You’ll also get a grasp of your competitors’ past, present and (most importantly) future strategies. Your analysis should give you an informed basis on which to develop strategies to achieve competitive advantage in the future. You’ll also be able to forecast the returns that can be made from your future strategies and investments. As a starting point, try answering the following questions: · Who are your competitors? · What threats do they pose? · What is your competitors’ profile? · What are your competitors’ objectives? · What strategies are your competitors using and how successful are they? · What are your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses? · How much are they charging for their products or services? · How are your competitors likely to respond to changes in the way you do business?
MSc Design Innovation Management | Global Inspirational Speaker & Writer | Social Entrepreneur | Holistic Coach & Mentor | Business Doctor | Strategic Design Thinker | Fashion Innovator | Dancer
5 年Couldn’t agree more with your standpoint. Well articulated and great questions, I must admit. However, having gained vast knowledge and experiences from both the field of business and design innovation management, the first step to gain competitive advantage is to identify opportunity in the market by understanding customers’ frustrations or pains, which in turn should help the problem solver to create effective and innovative solution in order to alleviate customers’ pains. Although it is vital to conduct competitor analysis to understand your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, nonetheless, the first step is to understand customer needs (opportunities) which determines your mission & vision - followed by your core values places your business at advantage as opposed to your competitors. For example, in terms of market positioning, Michael Porter’s competitive advantage strategy suggests that to gain competitive advantage, companies must understand their market position such as to choose to go with either cost leadership or distinctive strategy, or both which refers to generic strategy. Companies like McDonald’s, Premark and Asda supermarket uses this framework effectively. Market pull instead of competitor push!