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For your business to succeed, you need to know as
much about your competitors as you do about your own
company and customers. Unfortunately, many business
owners make the mistake of waiting until a competitor
is taking away its customers and profits to find out
whom and what they’re up against.
At
Evergreen Capital we research your competitors and
we provide a competitive analysis that will help you
evaluate your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
The
first step toward preparing a competitive analysis
is identifying your competitors. Every business has
competitors and you need to determine where your customers
can get a product or service that fills the same need
as yours does. Competitors can be classified into
three broad categories:
- Primary
Competitors – market leaders who currently
dominate the market and compete directly with your
product or service.
- Secondary/Indirect
Competitors – companies that are targeting
the same general market but may not have an identical
product or service to yours.
- Potential
Competitors – companies that may be moving
into your market (either a company that currently
has a similar product and is moving near your location
or a company in your area that is introducing a
new product line that will compete with your product).
Next,
we determine your competitors’ strengths and
vulnerabilities. Why do customers buy from them? Is
it price, value, service, location, reputation, expertise,
convenience, personnel, advertising? We also look
at opportunities and threats in your industry. How
well could your company react to a threat or take
advantage of an opportunity? And, how would your competitors
react to the same situations?
Once
we assess your competitors' strengths and weaknesses,
we determine where to position your company. One of
the most effective ways to do this is to create a
SWOT (strengths/weaknesses opportunities/threats)
analysis of your business. We rank your company in
the same categories that we ranked your competitors.
This will give an even clearer picture of where your
business fits in the competitive environment. It will
also help determine in what areas you need to improve
and what characteristics of your business you should
take advantage of in order to gain more customers.
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