strategy - competitor analysis
Competitor Analysis is an important part of the strategic planning process. This revision note
outlines the main role of, and steps in, competitor analysis
Why bother to analyse competitors?
Some businesses think it is best to get on with their own plans and ignore the competition. Others
become obsessed with tracking the actions of competitors (often using underhand or illegal
methods). Many businesses are happy simply to track the competition, copying their moves and
reacting to changes.
Competitor analysis has several important roles in strategic planning:
• To help management understand their competitive advantages/disadvantages relative to
competitors
• To generate understanding of competitors’ past, present (and most importantly) future
strategies
• To provide an informed basis to develop strategies to achieve competitive advantage in the
future
• To help forecast the returns that may be made from future investments (e.g. how will
competitors respond to a new product or pricing strategy?
Questions to ask
What questions should be asked when undertaking competitor analysis? The following is a
useful list to bear in mind:
• Who are our competitors? (see the section on identifying competitors further below)
• What threats do they pose?
• What is the profile of our competitors?
• What are the objectives of our competitors?
• What strategies are our competitors pursuing and how successful are these strategies?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of our competitors?
• How are our competitors likely to respond to any changes to the way we do business?
Sources of information for competitor analysis
Davidson (1997) describes how the sources of competitor information can be neatly grouped into
three categories:
• Recorded data: this is easily available in published form either internally or externally. Good
examples include competitor annual reports and product brochures;
• Observable data: this has to be actively sought and often assembled from several sources. A
good example is competitor pricing;
• Opportunistic data: to get hold of this kind of data requires a lot of planning and organisation.
Much of it is “anecdotal”, coming from discussions with suppliers, customers and, perhaps,
previous management of competitors.
The table below lists possible sources of competitor data using Davidson’s categorisation:
Recorded Data Observable Data Opportunistic Data
Annual report & accounts Pricing / price lists Meetings with suppliers
Press releases Advertising campaigns Trade shows
Newspaper articles Promotions Sales force meetings
Analysts reports Tenders Seminars / conferences
Regulatory reports Patent applications Recruiting ex-employees
Government reports Discussion with shared distributors
Presentations / speeches Social contacts with competitors
In his excellent book [Even More Offensive Marketing], Davidson likens the process of
gathering competitive data to a jigsaw puzzle. Each individual piece of data does not have much
value. The important skill is to collect as many of the pieces as possible and to assemble them
into an overall picture of the competitor. This enables you to identify any missing pieces and to
take the necessary steps to collect them.
What businesses need to know about their competitors
The tables below lists the kinds of competitor information that would help businesses complete
some good quality competitor analysis.
You can probably think of many more pieces of information about a competitor that would be
useful. However, an important challenge in competitor analysis is working out how to obtain
competitor information that is reliable, up-to-date and available legally(!).
What businesses probably already know their competitors
Overall sales and profits
Sales and profits by market
Sales by main brand
Cost structure
Market shares (revenues and volumes)
Organisation structure
Distribution system
Identity / profile of senior management
Advertising strategy and spending
Customer / consumer profile & attitudes
Customer retention levels
What businesses would really like to know about competitors
Sales and profits by product
Relative costs
Customer satisfaction and service levels
Customer retention levels
Distribution costs
New product strategies
Size and quality of customer databases
Advertising effectiveness
Future investment strategy
Contractual terms with key suppliers
Terms of strategic partnerships
