Competitive market analyses enable organizations in flagging competitors in their market and devise ways to compete against them. This plays an important role at every step of business development. Whether you are attempting to choose a business, draw up a business plan, or expand your business, research forms a key part in making informed decisions.
Lucintel considered the following points while performing a competitive market assessment:
- Recognize companies that make products/services in the market that pose as direct competitors to a client’s products/services.
- Weigh the client's products/services against competitors' products/services.
- Describe the market concentration (such as large number of small players or small number of large players).
- Measures the market's prevailing competitive intensity (fierce competition or live and let-live).
- Describe the competitors' facile market entry (can the easy entry of competitors drive down prices in the market?)
- Describe the clients' competitive strategies against competitors and their products.
Competitor analysis
Competitor analysis is an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors. An industry analysis provides information on possible competition sources (comprising all the presumed strategic actions and reactions and effects on the profitability of all competing organizations in the industry). Competitor analysis allows an organization to focus on its direct competition which becomes useful when faced with a few potential competitors.
Main objectives of Lucintel’s competitor analysis can be summarized as follows:
- To study the market trend and pattern;
- Chalk out strategy to increase market share;
- Understanding a competitor's current strategy and its strengths and weaknesses;
- To develop strategy for organizational growth when the organization is planning for diversification and expansion plan;
- An understanding of competitor strategies may help in anticipating upcoming threats and opportunities
Competitive Benchmarking
Competitive Benchmarking is a process where a firm’s standard operating system and performance metrics is weighed against industry bests or best practices from other organizations. This can encompass the entire range of business, i.e., finance, products and services, organization, technology, research and development, personnel policies, etc. By employing this procedure, the management can flag the best firms in their industry and compare the results and processes of those studied (the "targets") with one's own results and processes.
Lucintel’s competitive benchmarking assists the business organizations to compare their systems and products with other organizations. This comparison can be made on specific product features or can be on broad customer service categories such as product delivery, product warranty, etc.
Lucintel’s benchmarking encompasses the pertinent queries such as why the benchmark organization is better? What best practices are they using? How can we incorporate or adopt these practices into our organization? By identifying these performance differences we can determine the key improvement areas to better performance and emerge as the best.
Competitive Advantage
Lucintel’s competitive advantage enables organizations in recognizing the competitors in their market and drawing strategies to compete against them. The successful growth of a business depends on a strong competitive edge that gradually builds a loyal customer base which can be expanded over time. Lucintel’s competitive advantage strategy focuses on nurturing and retaining loyal customers.
The following points are important in performing a competitive assessment:
What will make the customer buy from this operation instead of the competition?
Comparison between the products/services to the competitors' products/services (features, service, quality, price, distribution, and brand).
List the companies involved in the production of these products/services.
Describe the market concentration (such as large number of small players or small number of large players).
Detail the market's prevailing competitive intensity (fierce competition or live and let-live).
Describe the competitors' facile market entry (can the easy entry of competitors drive down prices in the market?)
Describe the clients' competitive strategies against competitors and their products (low cost, niche market, product differentiation, etc).