The one constant in business is Change. Among the things that change much more often and rapidly than we often realize is the competitive landscape. Not just our competitors but the marketplace as a whole. And being busy growing revenues and providing excellent service to customers often prevents us from taking the time and the care to do the work of evaluating the landscape. We read the industry news and attend the conferences – and they are really useful – but that is only part of the whole process. This essay will give some practical steps toward developing a process to survey the competitive landscape with an eye on the competition.
Industry Analysis
Nearly every industry has a trade association, a group of consultants, and private equity companies that operate in that market. They are all key places to begin as they are great aggregators of industry and market information. Find all of their reports and consume them. Attend their webinars and download their gated content. A good way to internalize the information that is being ingested is to take notes and then deliver a presentation to the team about the findings.
Beyond trends, facts and figures, and outlooks for the future one of the most important pieces of intelligence are the names of the companies in the marketplace. These are potential partners, suppliers, indirect, and direct competitors. They are all worthy of study. Some great examples of these ecosystem maps can be found here (eye strain warning).
Company Research
Do you like spreadsheets and research? Good. Because this part requires a lot of it.
Start with the part of the ecosystem in which you operate. On your spreadsheet make a column for Company Name, Web Site, Overview, and Competition Type. This is the high-level view which tells you what companies to study in greater detail. Simply Google each company to find their website and get a feel for them; no need to digest each page of their sites.
With a general survey of the landscape done it is time to take a deep dive into the companies of interest – most likely the direct competitors. Try to divide them by strong competitors, medium competitors, and weaker competitors; think of a Venn diagram of what you do and for whom and then what each competitor does. The more they overlap, the stronger the competitor. Now it is time to analyze each and analyze them carefully.
Start with the website. Make note of things like:
Products: names, features / benefits, selling points
Markets served: there will commonly be a list of markets and how they engage in them; beyond that try to find the one or two markets in which they are most active
Locations: find the headquarters and regional offices; don’t hesitate to use Google Street View to determine if they are real offices or local representation
Industry strengths: comparing the company to industry required strengths such as technology, distribution, logistics, or customer service
LinkedIn is a great next place for research:
Take a look at the profiles for the senior leadership (as identified on the web site and/or LinkedIn
In the “Home” section: read the “About” content: does it square with the competitive analysis accumulated so far?
In the “About” section: take note of Industry, Company Size, and Specialties
In “Jobs” section: what are the open positions? What does that say about the current status of the company?
In the “People” section: see with whom you are already linked; see who is a second or third-level connection.
Compile all of this information into a dossier; the format of it should be of your choosing. The uses of the documentation and analysis of the market landscape are seemingly endless; from product positioning to sales tactics to strategic opportunity assessment.
Keeping it up to date is a subject for another time. Just remember that Google Alerts are your friends.
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