New technologies, changing customer needs, new market participants and ever shorter product life cycles - this is the situation in which companies will find themselves in 2021.
In order to remain successful in the market and to assert themselves against the competition, companies have to integrate competitive intelligence processes into their business strategy.
In this article you will learn why strategic competitive analysis - as a key element of competitive intelligence - is decisive for your company's success in 2021 and how you can build a framework for successful competitive analysis.
Why you should conduct a competitive analysis
A strategic competition analysis is essential for every successful company. It’s a complex tool that enables companies to spot trends, evaluate their competitors' strategies, identify their strengths and weaknesses and put them in relation to their own products and services.
The knowledge gained helps, among other things, to improve one's own products and services, develop unique selling points (USPs), become trendsetters in one’s own industry, to shorten the time-to-market and to permanently increase sales growth.
In order to derive the maximum benefit from the strategic competition analysis, it must be structured within a competition analysis framework.
What is a competitive analysis framework and what does it look like?
A competitive analysis framework is the structure that you apply to your competitive research to ensure that you are gathering all information relevant to competition.
The competitive analysis frameworks vary from company to company depending on which analysis results are to be achieved. Nevertheless, there are 5 steps in Best Practice that help every company to build and implement its own individual framework.
Step 1: Setup
Step 2: Collection
Step 3: Analysis
Step 4: Sharing
Step 5: Involve Management
If you would like to find out more about the individual best practice steps, you are welcome to download our free e-book “5 Step Framework for Competitive Analysis”.
Winding up
Recognizing the importance of competitive intelligence processes and understanding how to best compare yourself to your competition is of highest importance for companies.
The structured and strategic implementation of the competitive analysis is decisive for your success. There are no shortcuts in the competitive intelligence process, only the continuous strategic analysis, evaluation and adaptation of one's own capabilities, products and services to the competition, the market and the customer.
Enable your company to make predictions about the future and start your competitive intelligence journey today.
Because remember: your competition never sleeps and always strives to be more successful than you.