The next step in the strategic planning process is to complete a competitive analysis. The purpose of this step is to determine your company’s competitive advantage, which is the thing that gives your business an advantage over your competitors’, and keeps your customers coming back. In order to determine your completive advantage you must analyze your competitors’ businesses and identify their weaknesses.
Gathering information for your analysis is not as complicated as it might seem. Small business owners can find information about there competitors in trade publications such as baker-net.com, which is an online magazine dedicated to bakery businesses. Many trade magazines have websites as well as printed publications.The following are additional sources of information for your research; visit your competitors’ stores, purchase their products and try them, talk to their customers, consult their published credit reports, and keep files on your competitors for future reference. You should gather all the information that you can find on your four closest competitors to use in your analysis.
Next, you use the information that you gathered and the following questions to rank your business and your four competitors’ businesses in order to identify areas in which your company might enjoy a competitive advantage.
1. How do consumers perceive the reputation and physical appearance of the business?
2. Is the business convenient to customers in terms of distance, parking, traffic and visibility?
3. Is the physical layout of the business suited to serve the customers?
4. Is the atmosphere appropriate?
5. Can customers get the products that they expect?
6. Do customers receive the quality and quantity of services that they expect?
7. Are the prices appropriate?
8. Do the advertizing methods reach their target audience?
9. Are the customers comfortable with the sales methods that the business uses to sell its products?
Your competitive advantage puts you a step above your competitors, but it is important that you maintain your lead. Your objective should be to create a sustainable competitive advantage that differentiates your products and services from those of your competitors, and it should also make a meaningful difference to your customer. If you are looking for additional resources on the subject, the following is a link to an article, The Sure-Fire Way to Create Your Competitive Advantage which I found helpful when I completed my own competitive analysis.
No comments:
Post a Comment