Discuss the factors for doing competitor analysis and an organisations counter strategies?

An organisation gets a clear picture on the opportunities and threats once it does an analysis on the –

– Competitors current strengths and weaknesses
– Competitors future strategies basis the emerging market threats and opportunities

The following factors should be considered for understanding a competitor-
1) Current strategy on 4P’s – Information on Product, Price Place, and Promotion helps an organisation make changes to these to counter competition. The firm can invest in differentiation, positioning of the products and the brand differently. Information on the competitor product’s life cycle gives an idea on the future strategy that the competitor will adopt. Similarly, price changes can be done and distributor’s margins can be increased to garner distributors support.

2) Size, Growth, and Profitability – The recent and past records on sales and market share indicates the competitor as strong or weak. A strong competitor will generally have access to resources and will counter any threats in market strongly.

3) Services or devices competitors provide to gain customer loyalty.

4) Competitor’s organisation and culture – The top managements experience and background helps in gauging the steps that the competitor will take in near future, whether they innovate business methods as well as products.

5) Understanding competitor customers – A research on competitor’s customers should answer the following questions-
– Who are the buyers?
– What are these customer’s motivations?
– What products of the competitor’s consumers buy?
– What are the strengths and weaknesses of the competitor in the eyes of their customers?
– Data on new and loyal customers – whether there has been increase in the customer base?

The data on this will give idea on the current strengths and weaknesses on the competitor and opportunities and threats for the organisation. This information will help a marketer in effective marketing strategy in designing a new or a modified product, an effective promotion strategy, pricing strategy, and product distribution strategy.

6) Future plans – Information on new offerings that the competitor is working on, and the new customers the competitor is trying to target helps predict their future growth plans. For example, Samsung and Apple are always competing in releasing a better smartphone with new features every year – iPhone 7, Galaxy S7, etc.

7) Learn about the competitor from various sources– the information on competitor’s publicity campaigns, media exposure, helps anticipate competitor moves. An organisation should often visit trade exhibitions, their websites, forums, distributors, suppliers, invest in market research, etc. The company websites often gives lot of information on the company’s vision, financial reports, core business values, accomplishments, information on the top management, future plans, industry information, etc.

8) Information on competitor from your customers – An organisation can not only ask feedback/ information on its own products and service but also on the competitor via telephone surveys or during sales presentations–
– Which store is the closest to your house?
– Which product is easily available in your location?
– Do you have service centres of these products in your location?
– Which product has a better quality?
– Which product has lowest price?
– Which store has a better ambience?
– Which organisation has a better customer service?, etc.

After getting all the information, an organisation should do the assessment on the following questions-
i) What are the things that the competitor is doing better?
ii) What are the things that the competitor is doing worse?
iii) What are the things that the competitor is doing same?

The organisation should do a SWOT analysis basis this and work on improving the things where competitor is performing better. It can be product modification, after sales service, promotion, redesigning the company website, hiring staff with better exposure, product delivery or availability, price changes, etc.
The organisations strengths are identified once the analysis is done on aspects where the competitor is performing worse. An organisation cannot be complacent on its strengths as there are always opportunities in improving the functions of marketing. The competitor may also be studying the market and doing self-assessments for improving its operations.

In the areas where the competitor is performing the same, there is a need to raise the bar and do better. Analyse the data received from the distributors, suppliers, competitor’s customers, and your customers to exploit the gaps and work on not only meeting the customers’ expectations but also exceeding them.