Information is at the heart of any successful business. But make sure you are asking yourself the right questions and gathering the right pieces of information – especially when it comes to your competitors.
- How is their business performing overall, are they profitable?
- What products do they offer and what are the strengths and weaknesses of each of them?
- Who are their top customers and how do they manage them?
- What’s their core target market, is it growing or declining? If it is declining what are they doing about it?
- How much are they investing in new product development and what’s currently flavour of the month?
- What external factors effect them – for example the political situation, legislation, world events (e.g. global recession, the introduction of the Euro etc)
- Do they respect, fear, ridicule your business, or are they indifferent?
- Are they better, or worse, than you on the critical business success factors: product range, customer service, innovation, brand etc.
- How are they positioning and promoting themselves and their products?
- How much of a threat do they represent to you and in what way? What are you going to do about it?
If you’re struggling to find out about your competitors and would like some ideas and tips you can down load our Fact Sheets:
Research Techniques and 4 Steps to Better Competitor Intelligence .
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