How to Create a Competition Analysis
A competition analysis allows you to measure the strengths and weaknesses of your business, current competitors and potential competitors. The analysis helps a business assess opportunities and threats as well as providing help creating business strategies, including the implementation and monitoring of them.
Although competition analyses are different depending on a variety of things they do share common points. A competition analysis should show you who are the major competitors in a market along with what share of the market they hold. Another point included in an analysis is if any significant changes have been seen in the market shares of the competition over the past few years. You should also identify which competitors tackle the various segments of your market and who is the strongest in each field. Finally, a competition analysis should tell you about your competitors’ strategies in reaching your target market.
You can find this information in a variety of ways. First you can check out your competition personally. Visit the business if it’s a brick and mortar place and see whom they cater to and how they do business. You can also research your competition online. There are tons of free ways to do this research such as following any press your competitors receive. The government also offers free research options. Another option is to join a trade association in your field. Trade associations tend to have a lot of information about their fields and with the price of membership you can usually have access to it. Finally, there are plenty of paid searches you can do to find out specific data.
Make sure you know your target market before beginning a competition analysis and don’t forget to identify direct and indirect competitors. The solid base of information that comes from a strong competitive analysis can provide insights to your product and positioning, your company’s strengths and weaknesses and help you determine which areas in your market you can succeed the most as well as what places you shouldn’t worry about. And that is one of the best ways to successfully run a business.
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