It’s important to know who your rivals are regardless of whether you’re a company owner or an athlete. Business owners should employ the same guidelines as athletes who invest time studying and preparing for their opponents. Competitor research or competitor analysis is the method of analyzing and identifying the marketing strategies of your competitors to find opportunities for improving your company’s performance.
In the majority of markets, there are multiple companies offering similar products and services to the same kind of customers. This makes it challenging to make a mark and gain market share. Regularly conducted competitive analysis gives you a quick overview of current market conditions, and the data you need to determine where your company’s efforts should be focusing.
You can conduct competitor research using various frameworks like Porter’s Five Forces Model, the BCG matrix and SWOT analysis. You can also track your competitors their search engine optimization and web presence with social media tools such as Ahrefs or Semrush.
A key component of an analysis of competition is knowing how your competitors gain their dominance in the market, such as the reasons why their products are superior to yours and how you can overcome those barriers to entry. According to Josh Rovner a business consultant and the author of Unbreak the System : Diagnosing & Curing the 10 Critical flaws in your Business (Lioncrest Publishing 2020) Recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors will provide you a plan to gain a larger market share.
For example the case where a company like Apple decides to eliminate the headphone jack from their new iPhone models, it could be an opportunity for companies that sell wireless headphones. Regularly reviewing your competition can help you recognize opportunities and make timely adjustments to your strategy, so that your business has the best chance of achieving its goals over time.
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