Ancient Chinese military theorist Sun Tzu said: "Know the enemy and yourself, and your victory will never be in danger. Know the ground and the weather, and your victory is certain". In the XXI century world of business parlance, it means that every successful executive must possess maximum information on his own business as well as on his competitors' businesses.
We begin our Competition study with understanding of competition landscape in the market:
- Competitor segmentation
- Approximate number of the competitors in target market
- Approximate competitor concentration (e.g. top 20 competitors account for XX% of supply, etc.)
- Market shares held with each competitor group and with large competitors
The next stage is identification of top (major) competitors – current and likely future.
Usually our clients ask us to make profiling for the largest competitors in target market; we are able to provide the following information for each of the target competitors:
- Shareholding
- Management
- Key financials per last 3-5 years
- Organizational structure
- Sale (distribution) and servicing organization
- Territorial structure, branches/offices
- Production facilities (capacities, equipment, energy/utilities supply)
- Products/services
- Domestic & export markets
- Marketing and promotional activities
- Sale strategies (rebates, marketing support, sales support)
- Plans for the next 5-7 years
- Modernization programs
- Key customers
- Pricing policy
- Key decision maker(s)
- SWOT analysis
- Benchmarking
- Company’s reputation
- Market-entry and penetration strategies