Competitor Analysis: Be Different or Be the Same with Innovation
Write down the result of research conducted on your competitors. Before starting your business, you need to know three things about them: who they are, what their share in the market is, and what their activity and performance look like.
Identifying the competitors is sometimes quite simple and sometimes extremely complicated. If you are a rookie in what you do and don't know much about it, there might be many competitors you don't know. Make a list and write your competitors' names. Then check the place of your competitors in the market, what market share they have, what products and services they offer, and what kind of advertisement they use.
Having this information, you can analyze your competitors. Competitor analysis is helpful in creating a workable business plan and marketing plan. It can also stop you from starting the business in the first place. For example, the competitors' size may change your mind.
After gathering information on your competitors, identify the assets you are bringing to the market. Sometimes a market such as the restaurant business is so huge that you can also enter it; however, you need to search for your keys to success and identify your comparative advantage. The competitor analysis helps you in crafting the roadmap and making decisions.
You need to be either quite different from your competitors or exactly like them, but add innovative methods to your work. Make a table about your competitors, covering market share, services, advertisement and comparative advantage, and keep updating it based on your competitors' changes.