Competitor Analysis. Plan of Actions

For successful promotion of your business, it is important to analyze the actions of your competitors.

As the saying runs: “To defeat your enemy, you must first know your enemy”. However, this strategy also needs to be studied, because some companies enter into races with other companies which in general cannot be their competitors at all.

Therefore, in order to identify the competitors accurately, it is important to start from the analysis of your targeted audience (TA), as well as the targeted audience of a possible competitor company.

At the same time, it is better to struggle a competitor whom it is possible for you to defeat.

If you have a small company, it is wise to compete with the same companies as yours. It makes no sense to try to defeat the giants in this area.

There are not only the main, but also indirect competitors. This may be a company that deals with services in another area of business, but makes bids for the budget of your clients. For example, your business is a cafe, and your competitor is a cinema, which is located next to your inn.

Steps:

1. Basic information.

In this column of the table you can try to form a general idea of the competitor’s company. This may include the time of the company's existence, the regions of its work, the number of personnel and offices, the cash flow and the share of the market.

2. Product.

The main thing that needs to be studied is the product that your competitors produce or sell. If you can study the offers of these companies, it will provide the possibility for you to determine how competitive you are. While studying the product of competitors, you should pay attention to their range of products or services, the look of the product, type of packaging, warranty, color, size, and the charisma rating of their products.

In addition, while studying the product of competitors, you should especially pay attention to the cost of their goods and services. As a rule, the cost is estimated by many factors, including the product quality, the cost of its production, as well as the cost of brand development. But all the mentioned above does not matter for the buyers, because for them the most important thing is to buy the cheaper and better products. Therefore, you can analyze whether you can make the cost of your own product more attractive. Also, do not forget about the system of discounts.

3. Marketing.

Pay attention to how the competitors present themselves at the market, or in other words, analyze their brand and logo. It is also worth analyzing how they attract customers and what types of advertising they use. This will make it possible for you to be one step ahead of other companies.

4. Sales.

The next topic for analysis is sales. In this sphere it is necessary to pay attention to the following two points:

• People. As a rule, business is created by the employees, therefore, try to determine the main advantages of the employees of the competitor company and the reasons why the customers willingly use their services. These can be personal qualities, communication style, appearance, education, etc.
• Selling tools. These are the actions and materials that employees of the company use to contact the client. However, these are the materials that are not visible to customers, but are applied within the company. Such tools can be sales scripts, affiliate programs, motivation schemes and CRM-system.

5. Conditions and business processes.

Try to study the logistics of these companies, as well as production as far as it is possible..

Methods of Analysis

After you collect the maximum amount of information in all areas of business activity of the competitors, you can conduct a comparison study. For example, you can create a table with all the criteria, and then give an estimate to each of them. You can evaluate by points from 1 to 10 or by a yes / no principle. The disadvantage of this method is that sometimes it is difficult to evaluate one or another item objectively..

In addition, you can use the SWOT analysis method. This method involves comparing your company with a specific competitor, at that paying attention to 4 points: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The disadvantage of this method is the lack of assessments.

Use additional services or programs to make the analysis of your competitors easier. Such services can help you to make a more accurate comparison.