How To Get Ahead Of The Competition In 5 Easy Steps
In this cut-throat world, analysing competitors is essential to business operations. In this article, we ask How To Get Ahead Of The Competition In 5 Easy Steps. While finding information about competitors is somewhat easy with a simple Google search, you can also easily drown in the colossal amount of data. Especially in those dark and dangerous fabled data lakes and swamps.
To avoid it, you need a robust, effective, and systematic approach that helps you understand what your competitors are doing and their underlying strategies.
Robust competitor analysis
Robust competitor analysis includes these steps:
- Understand where you should focus your research
- Figure out authentic data sources
- Categorise the significant data
- Use the analysis framework to understand the data
- Offer in-depth research insights to the respective authorities
These steps are simple, repeatable, scalable, and most importantly, adaptable to any business niche.
Public announcements
Companies announce their business deals daily through press releases and various other means, providing you with extensive information about themselves and their operations. These announcements are published through social media, official channels, or on blogs, in news, and in articles. While most information is accessible to everyone, it can be challenging to make sense of it. So, how can you extract valuable information from the overwhelming amount of data available on the internet and in newspapers?
Create an overview of the rival company
First and foremost, start with the most basic information and create a skeleton of information for this competitor. From the trading name, main products, business location, and websites to their social media accounts, gather basic yet essential information about their market capitalisation, company status, annual profit, primary services or products, and board members, including their market experience.
Additionally, you can include details about their current market position, based on internal sources from your company. Focus on gathering information about the competitor’s strengths, reputation, main weaknesses, and brand positioning. This information helps you understand how one company fits in the global market. Moreover, it acts as a benchmark while understanding overall performance. This overview analysis provides a clear understanding of your competitor and whether it is a direct or indirect rival.
Collect relevant data
It is difficult to segregate relevant information from the available data. If you are interested in a competitor’s one product, you can disregard their other products and investments in other services. You must have a reliable source of business data where you get relevant information about market conditions, revenue funding, and legal documentation. Additionally, keep an eye on their website and public announcements, which can be found on their blog, newsletters, social media channels, and podcasts.
Compare your product with the competitor’s
Competitor analysis is not about beating your competitor. It’s about letting customers know more about you and allowing them to choose you over other offerings available in the market. Using the collected data, you can pinpoint target customers and how you can compete based on features, price, customer support, ease of use, warranty, and brand image. In this step, you need to work with the marketing team to understand what customers want.
Do a SWOT analysis
You may have heard about SWOT analysis. If done correctly, it’s the most elegant way to know about your competitors. SWOT gets a bad name because it’s rarely done correctly. As a result, it’s seen as easy, boring, and the total of competitor analysis.
Moreover, it helps you understand where you can outperform your competitors. You can actually turn a competitor’s weaknesses into your strengths. Furthermore, the threats your competitors are facing are also warning signs for you. Thus, it helps you prepare for the worst situations.
Involve decision-makers in your final assessment
The endpoint of any competitor analysis is to present your findings to decision-makers and help them take informed action. Your final research should not contain raw data, but rather include charts and visual guides to help them quickly understand competitors. Focus on actionable information.
Effective competitor analysis is the best way to stay ahead in the industry, and it’s a valuable tool for planning every business strategy and making informed, profitable investments.
How To Get Ahead Of The Competition In 5 Easy Steps
In conclusion, using Google to research your competitors is straightforward and can be highly beneficial in understanding their business. However, it’s essential to adopt a systematic approach to prevent being overwhelmed by the data. This includes having a clear goal for what you’re looking for and being able to analyse and synthesise the information you find. Thank you, Swamini Kulkarni, for your input on our article called how to get ahead of the competition in.
We are Octopus. The Global People-Powered Competitive Intelligence Agency.
Outsmart your competition. Make the unknown known. Octopus helps you gain clarity in complex markets. With clients and tentacles around the world, we deliver sharp, actionable competitive intelligence through a blend of deep primary (HUMINT) and secondary research. If you’re looking to make smarter decisions, beat the competition, and reduce uncertainty, we’re the partner you want on your side.
