1. Competitive Analysis

2. New ventures need to know what their competitions’ strengths and weaknesses are, if they want to be successful. To uncover this information entrepreneurs need to conduct a competitor analysis.
Including a competitor analysis in your business plan shows potential investors and banks that you are aware of the competition, that you understand your marketplace and that you have plans in place to compete at the same level as the current competitors.

3. In this competitive analysis, you need to describe your product or service and how it compares to what the competition has to offer.
Doing a SWOT analysis of your main competitors can form part of this description.

4. Benefits of a competitive analysis
It can help you understand your business’s competitive advantages and disadvantages in your industry
You can gain an understanding of your competitors’ business strategies
To provide an informed basis to develop strategies to achieve competitive advantage in the future
To help forecast the returns that may be made from future investments, ie how will competitors respond to a new product or pricing strategy?

5. What is a competitor analysis
A competitor analysis is an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of your businesses’ competitors.
This in-depth analysis of your industry competitors can help you to identify opportunities for improvement within your own business.
When you have completed your competitor analysis, you will be able to come up with a strategy to make the most of opportunities in your industry – and to deal with potential threats before they arise.

6. What’s in this analysis?
A comprehensive analysis of your competitors will allow you to track how your business compares in terms of:
Financial resources
Staff
Products
Service
Market share
Pricing
Customers
Financial data
Brand recognition
Location
Marketing tactics
Logistics

7. Sources of information
In today’s information age, finding information about your competition’s business is easier than you’d think.
Online searches should provide information that is published and available for general consumption. This is where you’ll find:
Annual reports
Company profiles
Product brochures
Press releases
Articles published in the media
Presentations.
Then there is data that will require some investigation and research, such as pricing, marketing campaigns, promotions and so on.
Other good sources of information about your competition include trade shows, conferences and seminars.

8. Competitive Analysis Example