According to Investopedia, a business plan is a document that details how a business is going to achieve its goals. It touches on the financial, marketing and operational aspects of a business. A business plan steers a company towards its future, helps to keep the company on track and ahead of the game. Before a business plan is written, it is good if a company studies what people are saying about their competitors. This has many advantages for the company in question.
First, knowing what consumers are saying about the competitors will help a business see where they can stand out. For instance, the competitor may have great products but bad customer service. A company who wants to go into that sector knows that they will easily beat such competition if they provide excellent customer service alongside their products.
Also, knowing what consumers say about a competitor helps a business to take advantage of the competitors’ weaknesses. As said earlier, a business plan includes marketing strategies. Any business who does not have a strong marketing game is ready to go under. Knowing where your competitors are weak when it comes to marketing their products enables the company to write a richer and strategic business plan. For instance, if a competitor relies on mainstream media for advertising their goods while their social media marketing is low; the company can take advantage of that and include strong social media marketing strategies in their business plan. One of the best way to know what customers are saying about your competitors is by reading their consumer reviews. The review platforms provide a means to know about all companies. Hence, there is a very large chance to know about your competitors by reading reviews.
Furthermore, it helps the company to use their initiative to fill in the gaps. While studying what consumers say about the competitors’ products, a company can know the communication gaps or quality gaps that occur in the provision of products. As such, they can come up with strategies on how to fill in those gaps in their products, and finally, win the consumers of the competitors to their side.
Moreso, this study helps a company to know the pulse of the market. If a competitor has a lot of unsatisfied customers, it signifies that the product in question is highly needed in the market. As such, there is a greater chance of success for anyone who provides a better quality of the same products in the market. However, if it turns out that little or no customers are saying anything about the competitors, a company may want to re-analyze the market to be sure if there is still a market for the product they are providing. It would be painful to provide for a market that does not exist or has stopped existing.
Finally, this study can help a company to replicate the values that have made its competitors successful over the years. Successful companies are built on strong values that are nourished year in year out on their way to achieving tremendous success. While not losing authenticity, it will be advisable that a company who is just starting reverse engineer their competitors’ system to quickly gain traction in the market space.
