Competitive Analysis: Study Winners and Failures
One of the most important things in a market report is the identification of the competitors and their activities: their products, marketing methods, pricing and advertising strategies. Sometimes you have to follow the competitors in every respect. When you are a small company, there is nothing wrong with cloning a big company such as Apple, because big companies have done a lot to improve their methods, but copying is worthless without creativity and improvement. Ideas and money hugely back the activity of a large company. Try to improve and develop that idea and adapt it to your business.
The forerunners of implementing an idea are not always the winners; sometimes those who improve the idea will be winners.
When facing your competitors, instead of wasting your time thwarting their plan, seek to attract more customers. There was a time when the competition between Apple and Samsung was so extreme that neither of their software was compatible with the other's; now, however, they make software that can copy all the programs of one to another.
All competitors must be identified, both successful and failed. A successful rival is successful, but you will not necessarily succeed if you act like that competitor, because their method may not be right for you. When you analyze a failed competitor, you can learn why they failed and at least avoid the strategy that led to their failure. Plenty of failures were once successful. At one time, the Atari game had its own market, but other games quickly replaced it.
Consider your opponent as a chess player who has several plans for each move and plans for the next few moves in advance. In competitive analysis, do not just analyze the results, but seek to find the reason for their actions.