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Essay: Understanding Business Competition in the Marketplace

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The marketplace is a highly dynamic and competitive environment. Businesses face tough competition from other independent entities that offer similar services or goods, known as ‘business competitors’. This competition exists in a number of ways, with the ultimate aim of every business being to attract more and more customers. Competition in the market revolves around price, quality, features, and offerings. The presence of rivals causes the price of products in a particular industry to fluctuate, as customers have multiple options to select the product that offers the best value for money. Business competitors are entities that have the capability to attract a business’s customers by offering greater value for money.

The Nature of Competition

Competition is an inherent aspect of the business world. According to Michael Porter’s Five Forces Framework, competition within an industry is influenced by the threat of new entrants, the bargaining power of suppliers, the bargaining power of buyers, the threat of substitute products or services, and the intensity of competitive rivalry. These forces shape the competitive landscape and influence how businesses strategize to gain an advantage over their rivals.

Price Competition

One of the most common forms of competition is price competition. Businesses, especially in sectors such as budget airlines, often compete aggressively on price to attract customers. For example, budget airlines compete with each other by offering low fares to attract the maximum number of passengers. Customers looking for a budget airline deal with no frills will select the option that offers the best value for money. Price wars can significantly impact profitability, but they can also increase market share for businesses that manage to offer competitive prices sustainably.

Product Innovation

Another critical aspect of competition is product innovation. Innovation allows businesses to differentiate their products and meet customer needs more effectively. Companies that invest in research and development can introduce unique features and improvements that set their products apart from competitors. The Diffusion of Innovations theory by Everett Rogers explains how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread. Innovators and early adopters play a crucial role in gaining a competitive edge through product innovation.

Personalization of Products

Personalization of products is another competitive strategy. Businesses tailor their offerings to meet the specific needs and preferences of individual customers. This approach enhances customer satisfaction and loyalty. For example, financial services companies may offer personalized investment plans or loan products that cater to an individual’s financial situation and goals. Personalization leverages data analytics and customer insights to deliver customized experiences, creating a competitive advantage .

Location is a significant factor in competition, particularly for retail businesses. Being situated in a convenient location for customers can drive higher foot traffic and sales. The concept of the Gravity Model of Retail Trade explains that the attractiveness of a retail location is influenced by its size and distance from customers. Businesses strategically choose locations to maximize accessibility and convenience for their target audience.

Customer Service

Customer service is a critical differentiator in a competitive market. Businesses that provide exceptional customer service can build strong relationships with their customers, leading to repeat business and positive word-of-mouth. The Service-Profit Chain model illustrates the connection between employee satisfaction , service quality, customer satisfaction, and profitability. Investing in customer service can create a loyal customer base and a sustainable competitive advantage.

Types of Business Competitors

Business competitors can be classified into two categories: direct competitors and indirect competitors.

Direct Competitors

A direct competitor is a business that manufactures or offers a good or service that is extremely similar to another business in the same marketplace. These competitors operate in the same geographic region and target the same potential customers. The products offered by direct competitors have little difference in terms of quality, features, or price. For example, supermarkets competing in a particular region are direct competitors. They offer similar products, and their competition primarily revolves around pricing, promotions, and customer service.

Indirect Competitors

Indirect competitors, on the other hand, offer different products or services that satisfy the same customer need. These competitors may operate in different sectors but compete for the same customer base by providing alternative solutions. For instance, in the entertainment industry, theatres face competition from other entertainment providers such as theme parks, bowling alleys, and streaming services. Although these alternatives offer different experiences, they compete for the same discretionary spending of consumers.

The Role of Competition in Business Strategy

Competition should be viewed as a catalyst for improvement rather than merely a threat. Businesses can leverage competition to refine their strategies, improve their offerings, and enhance overall performance. The Resource-Based View (RBV) theory suggests that a firm’s competitive advantage is derived from its unique resources and capabilities. By analyzing competitors and identifying gaps in the market, businesses can develop strategies that capitalize on their strengths and address their weaknesses.

Strategic Responses to Competition

• Differentiation Strategy : Businesses can adopt a differentiation strategy to stand out from competitors. This involves offering unique products or services that provide distinct value to customers. The uniqueness can be based on quality, features, design, or customer service. Differentiation reduces price sensitivity and builds brand loyalty.
• Cost Leadership Strategy : Another strategic response is the cost leadership strategy, where businesses aim to become the lowest-cost producer in the industry. By achieving economies of scale, optimizing operations, and reducing costs, businesses can offer competitive prices and attract price-sensitive customers.
• Focus Strategy : The focus strategy involves targeting a specific market segment and tailoring products or services to meet the needs of that segment. This approach allows businesses to concentrate their efforts and resources on a niche market, providing specialized solutions that larger competitors may overlook.
• Innovation and R&D : Investing in innovation and research and development (R&D) is crucial for staying ahead of competitors. Continuous improvement and the introduction of new products or services keep businesses relevant and competitive in a dynamic market.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) : Implementing effective CRM systems helps businesses understand customer preferences, behavior, and feedback. By leveraging this information, businesses can enhance customer satisfaction, build loyalty, and respond proactively to changing customer needs.

In conclusion, competition in the marketplace is a multifaceted phenomenon that drives businesses to improve and innovate continually. Understanding the nature of competition, including direct and indirect competitors, is essential for developing effective business strategies. By leveraging competition as a means of improvement, businesses can achieve differentiation, cost leadership, and focus on niche markets. Academic theories such as Porter’s Five Forces, the Diffusion of Innovations, the Gravity Model of Retail Trade, the Service-Profit Chain, and the Resource-Based View provide valuable insights into navigating and thriving in a competitive environment. Ultimately, competition benefits both businesses and consumers by fostering innovation, improving quality, and enhancing customer experiences.

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How to Write a Competitive Analysis for Your Business Plan

11 min. read

Updated January 3, 2024

Do you know who your competitors are? If you do, have you taken the time to conduct a thorough competitor analysis?

Knowing your competitors, how they operate, and the necessary benchmarks you need to hit are crucial to positioning your business for success. Investors will also want to see an analysis of the competition in your business plan.

In this guide, we’ll explore the significance of competitive analysis and guide you through the essential steps to conduct and write your own. 

You’ll learn how to identify and evaluate competitors to better understand the opportunities and threats to your business. And you’ll be given a four-step process to describe and visualize how your business fits within the competitive landscape.

• What is a competitive analysis?

A competitive analysis is the process of gathering information about your competitors and using it to identify their strengths and weaknesses. This information can then be used to develop strategies to improve your own business and gain a competitive advantage.

• How to conduct a competitive analysis

Before you start writing about the competition, you need to conduct your analysis. Here are the steps you need to take:

1. Identify your competitors

The first step in conducting a comprehensive competitive analysis is to identify your competitors. 

Start by creating a list of both direct and indirect competitors within your industry or market segment. Direct competitors offer similar products or services, while indirect competitors solve the same problems your company does, but with different products or services.

Keep in mind that this list may change over time. It’s crucial to revisit it regularly to keep track of any new entrants or changes to your current competitors. For instance, a new competitor may enter the market, or an existing competitor may change their product offerings.

2. Analyze the market

Once you’ve identified your competitors, you need to study the overall market. 

This includes the market size , growth rate, trends, and customer preferences. Be sure that you understand the key drivers of demand, demographic and psychographic profiles of your target audience , and any potential market gaps or opportunities.

Conducting a market analysis can require a significant amount of research and data collection. Luckily, if you’re writing a business plan you’ll follow this process to complete the market analysis section . So, doing this research has value for multiple parts of your plan.

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3. Create a competitive framework

You’ll need to establish criteria for comparing your business with competitors. You want the metrics and information you choose to provide answers to specific questions. (“Do we have the same customers?” “What features are offered?” “How many customers are being served?”)

Here are some common factors to consider including: 

• Market share
• Product/service offerings or features
• Distribution channels
• Target markets
• Marketing strategies
• Customer service

4. Research your competitors

You can now begin gathering information about your competitors. Because you spent the time to explore the market and set up a comparison framework—your research will be far more focused and easier to complete.

There’s no perfect research process, so start by exploring sources such as competitor websites, social media, customer reviews, industry reports, press releases, and public financial statements. You may also want to conduct primary research by interviewing customers, suppliers, or industry experts.

You can check out our full guide on conducting market research for more specific steps.

5. Assess their strengths and weaknesses

Evaluate each competitor based on the criteria you’ve established in the competitive framework. Identify their key strengths (competitive advantages) and weaknesses (areas where they underperform).

6. Identify opportunities and threats

Based on the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors, identify opportunities (areas where you can outperform them) and threats (areas where they may outperform you) for your business. 

You can check out our full guide to conducting a SWOT analysis for more specific questions that you should ask as part of each step. 

• How to write your competitive analysis

Once you’ve done your research, it’s time to present your findings in your business plan. Here are the steps you need to take:

1. Determine who your audience is

Who you are writing a business plan for (investors, partners, employees, etc.) may require you to format your competitive analysis differently. 

For an internal business plan you’ll use with your team, the competition section should help them better understand the competition. You and your team will use it to look at comparative strengths and weaknesses to help you develop strategies to gain a competitive advantage.

For fundraising, your plan will be shared with potential investors or as part of a bank loan. In this case, you’re describing the competition to reassure your target reader. You are showing awareness and a firm understanding of the competition, and are positioned to take advantage of opportunities while avoiding the pitfalls.

2. Describe your competitive position

You need to know how your business stacks up, based on the values it offers to your chosen target market. To run this comparison, you’ll be using the same criteria from the competitive framework you completed earlier. You need to identify your competitive advantages and weaknesses, and any areas where you can improve.

The goal is positioning (setting your business up against the background of other offerings), and making that position clear to the target market. Here are a few questions to ask yourself in order to define your competitive position:

• How are you going to take advantage of your distinctive differences, in your customers’ eyes? 
• What are you doing better? 
• How do you work toward strengths and away from weaknesses?
• What do you want the world to think and say about you and how you compare to others?

3. Visualize your competitive position

There are a few different ways to present your competitive framework in your business plan. The first is a “positioning map” and the second is a “competitive matrix”. Depending on your needs, you can use one or both of these to communicate the information that you gathered during your competitive analysis:

Positioning map

The positioning map plots two product or business benefits across a horizontal and vertical axis. The furthest points of each represent opposite extremes (Hot and cold for example) that intersect in the middle. With this simple chart, you can drop your own business and the competition into the zone that best represents the combination of both factors.

I often refer to marketing expert Philip Kohler’s simple strategic positioning map of breakfast, shown here. You can easily draw your own map with any two factors of competition to see how a market stacks up.

It’s quite common to see the price on one axis and some important qualitative factor on the other, with the assumption that there should be a rough relationship between price and quality.

Competitive matrix

It’s pretty common for most business plans to also include a competitive matrix. It shows how different competitors stack up according to the factors identified in your competitive framework. 

How do you stack up against the others? Here’s what a typical competitive matrix looks like:

For the record, I’ve seen dozens of competitive matrices in plans and pitches. I’ve never seen a single one that didn’t show that this company does more of what the market wants than all others. So maybe that tells you something about credibility and how to increase it. Still, the ones I see are all in the context of seeking investment, so maybe that’s the nature of the game.

4. Explain your strategies for gaining a competitive edge

Your business plan should also explain the strategies your business will use to capitalize on the opportunities you’ve identified while mitigating any threats from competition. This may involve improving your product/service offerings, targeting underserved market segments, offering more attractive price points, focusing on better customer service, or developing innovative marketing strategies.

While you should cover these strategies in the competition section, this information should be expanded on further in other areas of your business plan. 

For example, based on your competitive analysis you show that most competitors have the same feature set. As part of your strategy, you see a few obvious ways to better serve your target market with additional product features. This information should be referenced within your products and services section to back up your problem and solution statement. 

• Why competition is a good thing

Business owners often wish that they had no competition. They think that with no competition, the entire market for their product or service will be theirs. That is simply not the case—especially for new startups that have truly innovative products and services. Here’s why:

Competition validates your idea

You know you have a good idea when other people are coming up with similar products or services. Competition validates the market and the fact that there are most likely customers for your new product. This also means that the costs of marketing and educating your market go down (see my next point).

Competition helps educate your target market

Being first-to-market can be a huge advantage. It also means that you will have to spend way more than the next player to educate customers about your new widget, your new solution to a problem, and your new approach to services. 

This is especially true for businesses that are extremely innovative. These first-to-market businesses will be facing customers that didn’t know that there was a solution to their problem . These potential customers might not even know that they have a problem that can be solved in a better way. 

If you’re a first-to-market company, you will have an uphill battle to educate consumers—an often expensive and time-consuming process. The 2nd-to-market will enjoy all the benefits of an educated marketplace without the large marketing expense.

Competition pushes you

Businesses that have little or no competition become stagnant. Customers have few alternatives to choose from, so there is no incentive to innovate. Constant competition ensures that your marketplace continues to evolve and that your product offering continues to evolve with it.

Competition forces focus & differentiation

Without competition, it’s easy to lose focus on your core business and your core customers and start expanding into areas that don’t serve your best customers. Competition forces you and your business to figure out how to be different than your competition while focusing on your customers. In the long term, competition will help you build a better business.

• What if there is no competition?

One mistake many new businesses make is thinking that just because nobody else is doing exactly what they’re doing, their business is a sure thing. If you’re struggling to find competitors, ask yourself these questions.

Is there a good reason why no one else is doing it?

The smart thing to do is ask yourself,  “Why isn’t anyone else doing it?”

It’s possible that nobody’s selling cod-liver frozen yogurt in your area because there’s simply no market for it. Ask around, talk to people, and do your market research. If you determine that you’ve got customers out there, you’re in good shape.

But that still doesn’t mean there’s no competition.

How are customers getting their needs met?

There may not be another cod-liver frozen yogurt shop within 500 miles. But maybe an online distributor sells cod-liver oil to do-it-yourselfers who make their own fro-yo at home. Or maybe your potential customers are eating frozen salmon pops right now. 

Are there any businesses that are indirect competitors?

Don’t think of competition as only other businesses that do exactly what you do. Think about what currently exists on the market that your product would displace.

It’s the difference between direct competition and indirect competition. When Henry Ford started successfully mass-producing automobiles in the U.S., he didn’t have other automakers to compete with. His competition was horse-and-buggy makers, bicycles, and railroads.

Do a competitive analysis, but don’t let it derail your planning

While it’s important that you know the competition, don’t get too caught up in the research. 

If all you do is track your competition and do endless competitive analyses, you won’t be able to come up with original ideas. You will end up looking and acting just like your competition. Instead, make a habit of NOT visiting your competition’s website, NOT going into their store, and NOT calling their sales office. 

Focus instead on how you can provide the best service possible and spend your time talking to your customers. Figure out how you can better serve the next person that walks in the door so that they become a lifetime customer, a reference, or a referral source.

If you focus too much on the competition, you will become a copycat. When that happens, it won’t matter to a customer if they walk into your store or the competition’s because you will both be the same.

Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software , a co-founder of Borland International, and a recognized expert in business planning. He has an MBA from Stanford and degrees with honors from the University of Oregon and the University of Notre Dame. Today, Tim dedicates most of his time to blogging, teaching and evangelizing for business planning.

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A Guide to Competitive Analysis: It’s Not Just about Competitors

By Joe Weller | April 16, 2018 (updated February 13, 2024)

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If you were running a cross-country marathon, wouldn’t you want to know something of the terrain and expected weather conditions before you began? The same principle of preparation applies when starting and continuing a business. It’s not enough to focus on your own production and financial goals: You need to understand what’s happening around you, how others create goods or services, the economic forecast, changes in rules and regulations, and more. In other words, you need to conduct a competitive analysis. The thought of searching for and digesting the required information may seem overwhelming, but we make it easy.

In this article, we explain how to focus your analysis by first deciding what questions you want answered. Learn how to find current and potential competitors and how many of them you need to review. Then, we cover the specific aspects of your competitors that you need to consider as well as where to find more information about them. Marketing experts weigh in on how to maintain focus during analysis. We also offer free, downloadable competitive analysis templates to start you on your own information gathering and analysis.

What Is Competitor Analysis?

Competitor analysis (CA) is a process of identifying competitors and gauging their business and marketing strategies to understand both their strengths and weaknesses and those of your own business. Competitive analysis provides a higher-level perspective of the entire marketing landscape and competitive intelligence.

“Competitive analysis is the process of analyzing all collected information to derive some insight for reducing risk and making better decisions,” explains competitive intelligence expert and author Babette Bensoussan .

“It is about your broader competitive environment,” she says. “I always remind my clients that competitors make up only one element of a business’s competitive environment. Other elements include government, technology, buyers, and suppliers, to name a few that impact how well you can compete.”

What Is the Purpose of a Competitive Analysis?

Researching your competitive landscape is essential to business growth and survival, and helps you offer better products or services to customers. You should gain an understanding of how customers view your company, what you’re doing right, and what you’re doing wrong. Therefore, competitive analysis forms a crucial part of marketing plans to help you understand what differentiates your product or service. Particularly when applying for funding, competitive analysis provides valuable insight into business plans. However, competitive analysis offers much more:

• Branding possibilities
• Insight into how competitors design products and messages
• SEO possibilities
• CRO (conversion rate optimization)
• GTM strategies
• User experience (UX) advantages of your and others’ products and websites
• Gaps in the market
• New products and services to develop
• Market trends

According to a Conductor survey , 60 percent of marketers don’t feel proficient in competitive analysis. Many don’t practice it on a regular basis. Knowledge derived from these exercises is critical, and you need to assess competition regularly. Nevertheless, marketing departments often skip competitive analysis, which leaves them with a fragmentary understanding of the landscape and competitors. Being proactive can help you anticipate and prepare for competitor developments and provide you with the agility to take advantage of changes.

According to Bensoussan, “In today’s world of constant change and information overload (whether the information be real or fake), it is critical for any business person to understand the competitive landscape and the forces that impact the profitability and viability of a business.”

What Should Be Included in a Competitive Analysis?

In most cases, a competitive analysis contains a few basic sections, which may vary depending on the size and form of your company and the focus of your analysis:

• A list of your main competitors
• An overview or what you know about them
• Who their target customers are
• A list of their products or services
• What media they use to market their goods and services
• Their current and past marketing strategies
• Their value proposition and effectiveness
• An analysis of all of the strengths and weaknesses of your competition (and your own company)
• An overview of the strategies being used by the competition to achieve their objectives
• An overview of the market and projections for the future

How to Prepare for a Competitive Analysis

One of the crucial prerequisites for a successful competitive analysis is an open mind. Check your beliefs at the door — what you think about your company, your customers, or your competitors isn’t necessarily true. That can be a good thing.

In addition, it is vital to understand why you are conducting an analysis. What are your goals for the business? What are your goals for this analysis? “Always, always be very clear as to what the decision you will be making is all about,” advises Bensoussan. “If you are not clear about your decision, then you will never know if you have good competitive analysis or just some more information.”

She offers these two questions as examples of how different the impact of each answer can be: “Tell me who’s who in the [manufacturing] of zippers?” versus “Should I enter the zipper-manufacturing industry, and can I achieve a return on investment of, say, 15 percent in three years?”

“Which question would help you the most in delivering good quality CA? Which outcome do you think would provide the most value?” Bensoussan asks.

Companies often enlist the help of outside consulting firms dedicated to conducting competitive intelligence research. Guidance on competitive intelligence support, such as database information, software platforms for market program tracking, and more is available through the Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals .

Competitor Analysis Frameworks

Over the decades, marketing gurus have developed or advocated several competitive analysis frameworks. Here are six well-known methods to consider.

• Porter’s Five Forces Model: First published in 1979 by Harvard Business School professor Michael Porter, the Five Forces model provides a view beyond competitors to factors in your industry landscape that may threaten or strengthen your position. The Five Forces include the following:

• Potential New Entrants: Consider how much money, time, and effort it would take for a company to displace you.
• Competitive Rivalry: Determine who your competitors are, who the closest competitors are, and their products, prices, and quality. Fewer rivals mean more opportunity for your unique qualities to shine; many rivals mean more competitors to steal your customers and potentially better deals to lead customers elsewhere.
• Suppliers: The more potential suppliers you have, the better for you. Consider how having fewer suppliers might impact your operation.
• Buyers: If you have many customers, you have the power. Otherwise, buyers can negotiate more advantageous deals elsewhere or find sources other than yours. Consider how you would treat that situation.
• Substitutes (or Complements): A competitor could create a product or model that replaces yours. On the other hand, a new product or service could also complement yours, which would create a symbiotic sales situation. Complements are sometimes considered the sixth force in the model.

Porter stressed the importance of not confusing these constants with temporary disruptions, such as technological innovations or government interventions in industry.

You can download the Five Forces model below to answer your own questions about an industry or business proposition.

Download Five Forces Model

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Industry Life Cycle Overview: Both industries and individual products have life cycles, which reflect the state of sales, whether robust or diminishing. Understand which stage of the life cycle your industry, company, or product is in to help target your marketing efforts. Product life cycles contain such stages as these:

• Introduction: At the introductory stage, a new industry or product is not well known or proven. It is usually marketed to a few early adopters. Because resources focus on product development, testing, and refinement, few or no profits accrue. Marketing focuses on explaining the product, creating awareness around it, and establishing a niche.
• Growth: As awareness grows and the industry or product becomes established, profits may also grow. However, in the growth stage, rival products may also appear. Although improvements require funds, production efficiencies may also develop. Some products have only a short growth phase. For example, a particular fashion may last for only one season. Other products experience a long or extended growth phase, such as software products, which continue their usefulness through upgrades. During the growth stage, marketing centers on differentiating the product, so it stands out from competing products.
• Maturity: In the maturity stage of a product or industry, sales may expand, but at a less accelerated rate. Fewer competitors may dominate the market and may attempt to differentiate on quality or increase sales by touting low costs.
• Saturation: You reach the saturation stage when every customer who could buy the product already owns the product. A lack of innovation or competition from a superior product could result in saturation.
• Decline/Termination: Industries and products decline for several reasons. Innovations may overtake them and render them obsolete. Businesses and product lines may fail to upgrade and innovate. At the decline or termination stage, companies may fold, continue in a smaller market, or merge with larger, successful businesses.  

Strategic Groups Analysis: You perform strategic groups analysis on companies within a business sector, such as automobiles, to see how they vie for their share of consumer expenditure. By dividing companies into strategic groups, you can understand how businesses of different sizes behave in the marketing landscape. Businesses within groups tend to be competitors, whereas businesses in other groups are related but not competitive. For example, running shoes and high-end women’s dress shoes are in different groups. Analyzing companies in this way can also reveal other significant information: direct competitors and their basis for competition; if and how a company can move to another group; and strategic problems and opportunities. Strategic groups are usually plotted on an x-y axis, where two highly relevant criteria form the axes. Here are some examples of criteria:

• Brand ownership
• Company size
• Capacity utilization
• Cost structure
• Geographical market segmentation
• Marketing activities
• Ownership structure
• Sales channels
• Product diversity
• Product quality
• R&D capability
• Vertical and horizontal integration

First, plot the companies where you think they belong on the graph. Now, with all companies plotted, create groupings. If you want, you can use larger or smaller circles to indicate market share. To gain greater insight, perform a Five Forces analysis on them, or consider the mobility barriers that prevent companies from shifting to other strategic groups.  

SWOT: Perhaps one of the most commonly addressed marketing analyses is SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats). In essence, SWOT represents what competitors do and do not do well. As you look at SWOT for competitors, also consider it for your own products and services.

• Strengths: What do they do better than you? What are they known for? Is their pricing, inventory, convenience, and level of service better than yours?
• Weaknesses: How do they fall short of your company’s standards? Can you leverage their shortcomings to improve your standing with customers?
• Opportunities: What in your competitors’ landscape can you exploit to your advantage?
• Threats: What in your competitors’ landscape threatens their business position?

Note that strengths and weaknesses focus on internal characteristics, while opportunities and threats concern external forces. SWOT can be performed separately, but it may provide a useful frame for studying a business’ products and services, marketing, and sales.  

Competitive Array: Competitive arrays, also known as competitive matrices , provide a way to quantify characteristics that may be unquantifiable. For example, if company A sells 500 widgets and company B sells 250, it’s clear which company sold more. But how do you quantify the attractiveness of online and print media or innovation? Creating the competitive array can be an individual or group exercise. To start, list your competitors across the top of your writing surface. In the left-most column, list important characteristics. Next, create a column for weighting the importance of each characteristic so that the sum of the characteristics totals one. The higher the weighting, the more important the characteristic (you may have a few characteristics with the same weight). Next, grade each competitor for each characteristic on a scale, such as from one to 10. Now, multiply the grade by the corresponding weight.  

Competitive Value Proposition Analysis: The characteristics of a value proposition are exclusivity, clarity, and credibility. This method concerns how unique the product or service is, how clearly the product message is conveyed, and whether the message is credibly supported by evidence, such as testimonials, statistics, or test results. Because customers remember only a few key advantages of your product from your media promotion, the main value proposition must be correct and clear and mesh with your actual competitive advantage. To figure out how to differentiate your company, you must determine how competitors differentiate themselves from each other. POPs (points of parity), PODs (points of difference), and POIs (points of irrelevance) help you dissect value propositions.

• Points of Parity (POPs): These are elements of customer benefit that both you and your competitors offer.
• Points of Difference (PODs): These are features of customer benefit that you offer but competitors don’t. Keep in mind that not every point of difference is significant to consumers.
• Points of Irrelevance (POIs): These are characteristics that customers don’t care about.

Your unique value proposition (differentiating characteristics) doesn’t need to appeal to every customer. Don’t make your value proposition too general. You can’t be all things to all customers, just as you can’t do what your competitors are doing.

Otherwise, there's no differentiation. You end up being like teenagers, everybody in the same jeans," says Sonia Schechter, Chief Marketing Officer of Marxent , a provider of virtual reality and augmented reality apps for furniture retailers. Therefore, target your message.

Discover your points of parity by using our POP template.

Download Points of Parity Template

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Who Are Your Competitors?

As a first step in competitive analysis, marketing guides typically suggest determining who your competitors are. Competitors can be divided into groups of direct competitors, indirect competitors, and future competitors.

• Direct Competitor: These are companies who sell a direct substitute for your product, operate in the same geographic area, and/or offer the same goods (such as groceries) to the same market. Ask who your customers would buy from if you weren’t in business.
• Indirect Competitor: These are companies in the same geographic area whose products occupy the same general, but not specific, category as your own (e.g., a general bakery versus a designer cake store). Indirect competition satisfies the customer’s need for a particular product or service, although that product or service may be different from yours. Similar products operating in different market segments do not represent direct competitors. For example, a high-end seafood restaurant doesn’t compete with a burger place.
• Future Competitor: Future competitors may currently be indirect competitors who change and expand solutions. In the bakery example, the general bakery could hire a high-end designer to compete with the specialty cake maker. Or, the designer cake store could branch out into breads and muffins.

It may be difficult at first to envision what types of organizations you need to analyze and whether you need to analyze all competitors.To identify competitors, ask yourself who your customers would buy from if your product did not exist. Perhaps even more important, consider who your customers think your competitors are. How many competitors you review depends: If only a few companies do what you do, analyze everyone. If you have many competitors, use Pareto analysis to focus on the critical 20 percent. Larger businesses may analyze the top 10, whereas a small business can focus on three. Disregard online competitors unless you plan to sell online.

‌ Download Pareto Chart Template - Excel

How to Find Current Competitors

Some competitors may seem obvious, but sleuthing can reveal challengers you weren’t aware of.

• Google search for a product or service similar to yours. Consider the companies in paid ads and organic returns.
• Try SEMrush to check which domains are using which keywords.
• Ask your current customers who they would choose besides you.
• Check Alexa, Google Trends, or SimilarWeb for general estimates on the popularity of domain names and keywords.
• Review Dun & Bradstreet for new incorporations.
• Consult Derwent for new patent information.
• See who has booths at trade shows.

How to Find Potential Competitors

While you consider the current playing field, you must also keep your eye on what’s coming around the corner. These are the future new entrants in your niche. Consider who might start a  business that would compete with yours. New competitors can be found in related markets, related technologies, or related products. Companies from other geographical areas with similar products may begin to sell in your area, and former employees or managers can start their own companies based on the themes of your business. In addition, consider the following conditions that may encourage competition:

• A company gains competitive advantage.
• Buyers are dissatisfied with suppliers.
• An unmet demand for goods exists.
• Few major barriers to entry exist.
• The industry offers high profit margins.
• The industry offers unrealized growth potential.
• Competitive rivalry is not intense.

It’s Not All about Competitors ( Competitive Doesn’t Always Mean Competitor )

Depending on what your product or service is and where it is in its life cycle, a competitor focus may not be optimal. For example, for emerging technologies, no true competitor may exist.

“Looking too closely at competition is a massive distraction,” Schechter notes. “If you’re selling a commodity or established product, such as a drugstore, which sells the same thing anywhere, you’d be looking at specific issues, like price, location, and assortment.”

Schecter says marketers themselves often don’t understand that what the competition is doing is not important: “Successful marketing is how you define yourself in the landscape. People don’t care about a feature-by-feature description, or even one feature. They buy the package. They like you. You’re different or you’re solving a particular problem. A new business must define and lay out the landscape for the customer.”

To succeed, understanding what customers want is key. “Marketers have nuanced detail, and customers don’t care about that detail,” Schechter continues. “But, you have to listen to their questions and engage in dialogue with them to gain real understanding,” she points out. She cites Apple’s promotion of the camera in the first iPhone as an example of marketers understanding what — out of thousands of potential functions — was important to consumers. “B2B marketing is the same. It’s about listening to customers, figuring out how they’re shopping, and trying to see through their eyes,” Schechter emphasizes.

“Obsessing over competition can get you off track. If you’re listening to customers, you’ll build the right product. But you don’t need to build your dreams on other people’s ideas,” she concludes.

Where to Find Information for a Competitive Analysis

Remember that every department of your business is a potential source for information, including the following areas:

• Sales: Questions for potential, current, and lost customers
• Research and Development: New patents
• Purchasing: Suppliers
• Marketing: Customers and other consumers

Once you’ve determined who your competitors are and what you want to learn about them and from them, you need to go information hunting:

• Visit offices or brick-and-mortar stores. What do they look like? Who’s there?
• Get financial and organizational information from public filings and from sources like Hoovers, Manta, and Dun & Bradstreet.
• Monitor PR Newswire for new developments and changes.
• Some marketing platforms may actually include information about your competitors.

Interviews and Research Surveys

Interviewing competitor customers and consumers who know little about your business is important to overcoming your preconceptions about the business landscape. You probably have specific questions in mind, but here are the basics:

• Why are you shopping for a solution?
• What were the main reasons you chose the company you did?
• Ranked from most important to least important, what are your five shopping criteria?

Media Scanning or Competitor Content Analysis

You can learn much about competitor products and messaging by scanning media. Media doesn’t just include online content (web pages, tweets, and Facebook posts) — it also includes such traditional marketing collateral as white papers, case studies, and data sheets. Moreover, consider reference materials, such as LexisNexis and Hoovers, and trade, business, or news publications for ads, news stories, and press releases. Media and content can reveal not only new products and new branding, but also new positioning and segmentation strategies, pricing, target markets, and promotion strategy.

What Information to Search for in Competitive Analysis

The approach to analysis depends on the questions requiring answers. To organize your analysis, divide it into three aspects: product or services, marketing, and sales. Each aspect contains its own questions and means of analysis.

Products and Services

Your understanding of products and services must be thorough. Investigate the complete product or service line. Try to understand who your competitors’ customers are and what they need. Look at their pricing strategy and see if it differs for online and brick-and-mortar stores. Also, consider how they differentiate from their competitors.

Tracking competitor sales processes can involve more legwork. For public companies, SEC filings provide some financial information about growth or contraction, but, for private companies, information is less readily available. Information about sales channels may be easy to find through a look in the phone book or online. You can also gather details about the sale process by asking current customers why they chose your product over others. You can also acquire valuable information by following up even after you lose a sale in order to understand the customer’s thinking. What do their partner resales programs look like? What are their revenues versus sales volume?

Marketing Efforts in Competitive Analysis

What does the competitor marketing plan entail? How do competitors invest marketing efforts? What can you do even better? A variety of approaches can help you define competitor marketing strategy.

When you identify marketing assets, take a reasonable sample of items — no need to review all of them. Just remember to keep samples consistent among competitors. Also, when reviewing items, consider the quality of the collateral. It should appear professional, with no typos, and in the formal, professional, idiomatic voice. In addition, a solid library of resources, such as consistent blog posts, whitepapers, case studies, videos, webinars, and podcasts may point you to themes and leads you should follow.

E-Marketing Strategy Competitive Analysis

Few businesses today can function without a web presence that helps generate traffic and inquiries or purchases. Some statistics say that prospective buyers visit a website as many as nine times before purchasing and, depending on the product, visit multiple sites before purchasing. Forrester research after 2010 suggests potential customers visit three sites on average before buying. The more sites visited, the more money the customer intends to spend.

Therefore, understanding how your site compares to your nearest competitors can be helpful. To drive eyes to websites, online purveyors use search engine optimization (SEO) to employ the keywords most likely to garner high search ratings in Google (and other search engines). Marketers frequently also use SEM (search engine marketing) to promote a business or product by increasing visits to a website through paid keywords. Look at how saturated their content is with keywords and where they use keywords, whether in H1 and H2 tags, page titles, content, or links. Also, look at the difficulty level of their keywords.

Consider the usability of the steps in the sales funnel as well as the navigation. What do the  landing pages say? Also, look at backlinks (i.e., links from other pages to your competitor’s page) to your web page. See how many backlinks exist — and from which pages — to understand if this is something you can improve for your website.

Structure is important, but quality content also matters. Online marketing collateral appears as blogs, white papers, ebooks, case studies or user stories, videos, webinars, podcasts, and more. But words and pictures themselves are not valuable if they don’t offer any unique information or concise approaches to existing knowledge. Check whether content is shared and which topics attract attention, or, conversely, what that content and those topics are linked to. What do readers comment on, if they do comment? Who else is sharing what your competitors are publishing?

Social Media

Certain social media platforms appeal to some audiences more than others. The channels a company favors can reveal clues to the demographics of their target market. Make note of what social media buttons they include on pages and where on the page they include them.

Software Tools for Understanding Online Competitors

Besides monitoring content, you can monitor the mechanics of competitor websites to glean more data about how marketing strategy and product offerings are changing. Software helps to automate these investigations for you. Following are some of the many products available:

• BuiltWith : See what platform was used to build a page.
• Ghostery : Find trackers on a website.
• SEMrush : Discover company rankings, organic keywords, AdWords, and analyses of backlinks.
• Versionista : Track web page and website changes, SEO changes, and more.
• Visualping : Monitor webpage updates.
• SpyFu : Find competitor keywords and AdWords, including AdWord and keyword variations and history.
• iSpionage : Track PPC and other keywords in competitor campaigns.
• SimilarWeb : Compare competitor websites to your own.
• Heatmaps: Use large amounts of data to provide a visual representation of how users interact with a website. Heatmaps can indicate where users click and look and for how long. Levels of intensity of activity are usually displayed through colors.
• Session Recording Tools: Record user browsing sessions. Session recording tools can yield a wealth of rich data, but raise some privacy concerns.
• Tag Management Systems: Advanced e-marketing implementations use tags to aid analysis and reporting. Tags are snippets of code that are usually added to the <head> tags of a web page.

Web Page User Testing for UX in Competitive Analysis

It’s essential to understand how consumers approach your website, especially for web-based products and marketing. Allow customers to test your site, and even view it yourself from a customer’s perspective, to help eliminate unnecessary steps and streamline your sales funnel. Doing so can also help to illuminate the opportunities for upsells and cross-sells.

Limiting the analysis to two or three competitors offers a manageable amount of insight into usability, which helps you avoid reviewer overload and confusion. For impartial results, don’t reveal to test participants which website is yours.

Ask test participants to enter words in Google or list the words and phrases they would use to find a certain product or service. Not only does this yield potentially fruitful keywords, it also indicates whether your site appears in search returns.

To get a sense of each participant’s impression, have them look at each website for five seconds and answer the following questions:

• What three words would you use to describe the site?
• What is it about? What products or services are offered and for whom?
• How does this website make you feel?

To understand their process, give participants a task to perform on each website. Ask them to answer the following questions:

• What was the worst thing about your visit to this website?
• What aspects of the experience could be improved?
• What did you like about the website?
• What other comments do you have?
• Which website did you like best and why?

How Much Data Do You Need in a Competitive Analysis?

It may seem overwhelming to sit down and search out your competitors’ business situations. That’s why setting a clear intention before you begin an analysis is so important. In addition, Babette Bensoussan advises that you don’t need to analyze everything:

“Over the years, I have learned that once you have 70 percent of the information required for your chosen analytical technique, you can proceed to the analysis,” she explains. “You never really need all the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle to tell you what the picture is. This same philosophy applies to analysis. More information may not yield better insights nor improve predictive accuracy.”

How Do I Write a Competitor Analysis Report?

The format of your analysis depends on individual choice and the audience. You may also choose to use one kind of format while you work through the analysis, and another when you present findings.

Take a sheet of paper. In the left-most column, write the names of your closest competitors. Across the top of the page, list the main attributes of each product, such as target market, price, size, method of distribution, extent of customer service, prospective buyers, and so on. Then, make a check or a note for each attribute the competitor fulfils. An additional column can contain information about service or product availability, the website, a toll-free phone number, and other general information.

A competitor profile helps you make a detailed record about each competitor, and also allows you to capture snapshots of a business over time. Consider listing some of the following information:

• Location of offices and factories
• Key personalities, history, and trends
• Ownership, organizational structure, and corporate governance
• Number of employees and skill sets
• Management and management style
• Compensation, benefits, and retention rates
• Plant capacity, utilization rate, age of plant, capital investment
• Product mix per plant and shipping logistics
• Products and services
• Depth of product line
• New products developed and success rate
• Research and development details
• Brands and brand loyalty and awareness
• Patents and licenses
• Quality control conformance
• Cash flow and liquidity
• Profit growth profile
• Method of growth (organic or acquisitive)
• Objectives, mission statement, growth plans, acquisitions
• Marketing strategies
• Segments served, market shares, customer base, growth rate, and customer loyalty
• Promotional mix, promotional budgets, advertising themes, ad agency used, online promotional strategy
• Distribution channels (direct and indirect) and exclusivity agreements

Here is a step-by-step process for writing a competitor analysis report:

• Write down your competitors.
• Write what you know about them already.
• Discover who their target customers are.
• Discover their pricing methods.
• Investigate their marketing strategy.
• Figure out their competitive advantage.

Download our competitive analysis landscape template to get ideas for gathering information and reporting analysis results.

Download Competitive Analysis Landscape Template

Excel  |  Word  |  PDF  | Smartsheet

Competitive Analysis for Small Businesses

Small business can be competitive. Beyond meeting financial targets, you need to understand the competitive landscape (short of allowing it to distract you) and then target a niche market.  Many of the same analyses that apply to large businesses also apply to small businesses. However, if this is your first business, or if you don’t have a marketing background, you may want to pay attention to a few aspects.

First, it is helpful to acknowledge how much or how little you know about your competitors by sketching a profile of your top two or three competitors. Next, try to learn all you can about your competition.

You can use the following template to perform a competitive analysis for your small business.

Download Small Business Competitive Analysis Template

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What Is a Competitive Analysis in a Business Plan?

Competitive analysis should play a key role in the preparation of a business plan. Particularly if you seek outside funding, your knowledge of the competitive landscape will show your understanding of your business and the market forces at play.

When starting a business, consider all the analysis questions described above, but pay particular attention to issues of growth and opportunity. Consider addressing the following circumstances:

• Whether current competitors target a specific niche or offer products to the mass market
• If, how, and why competitors are growing or reducing business
• How your company will be stronger than competitors and better able to exploit changes in the market landscape
• What you will offer customers that no one else does (your competitive advantage)

In the business plan, describe the competitive landscape as it relates to direct and indirect competitors and opportunities and risks, emphasizing your competitive advantage. This competitive analysis can form the basis for your first marketing plan.

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Blog Marketing How to Create a Competitor Analysis Report (with Examples)

How to Create a Competitor Analysis Report (with Examples)

Written by: Midori Nediger Nov 09, 2023

Your business will always have competition.

And if you don’t know what that competition is up to, you could be missing out on huge opportunities.

That’s why a competitive analysis is so crucial to your success as a business. It gives you the tools to quickly adapt to any changes in the competitive landscape and potentially capitalize on industry trends that your competitors haven’t even noticed.

So let’s get some basics out of the way…

What is a competitive analysis report?

A competitive analysis report outlines the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors compared to those of your own business.

Typically, a competitive analysis report will contain:

• A description of your business’s target market
• Details about the features of your product compared to your competitors’ products
• A breakdown of current and projected market share, sales, and revenues
• Comparisons of pricing models
• An analysis of marketing strategy and social media strategy
• A description of customer ratings of the features of each competitor

Whether you’re a startup trying to break into the marketplace , a consultant trying to get results for your client, or an established company looking to cement your foothold against the competition, a well-researched competitive analysis gives you the tools you need to make strategic decisions.

Your competitive analysis should inform your marketing plan , your business plan , your consultant report and every part of your high-level business strategy.

But how do you actually create a competitive analysis report?

How to make competitor analysis report :

• Start with a competitor overview
• Conduct market research to uncover customer personas and industry trends
• Compare product features in a feature comparison matrix
• Summarize your strengths and weaknesses with a SWOT analysis
• Show where you fit in the competitive landscape
• Use a competitor analysis template for a professional look and feel

The level of detail you include in each section of your competitive analysis report will vary depending on the stage of your business growth and your goals. For example, a startup might create a report that focuses on market research, while an established business might dive into detail on an emerging competitor.

But let’s talk about the parts of a competitive analysis that every report should include.

1. Start with a competitor overview

A strong report shows exactly what a company must out-compete to be successful.

Meaning you must audit any product or service that currently solves the problem your business is trying to solve for customers and write a quick profile for each competitor.

Like the template below, each competitor profile might include:

• The company’s revenue and market share
• The company’s size and information about their management team
• A broad description of the company’s strengths and weaknesses
• An overview of how the company is perceived by customers

This overview will help your readers get a big-picture view of the market landscape.

2. Conduct market research to uncover customer personas and industry trends

You can’t create a competitive analysis report without doing extensive market research , which is all about gathering information to understand your customers, identify opportunities to grow, and recognize trends in the industry.

This research can help you put together the customer personas that will guide business and marketing decisions down the line, and allow you to plan for any shifts that might disrupt the marketplace.

You can conduct primary market research, with:

• Customer interviews
• Online surveys or questionnaires
• In-person focus groups
• Purchasing a competitor product to study packaging and delivery experience

Or secondary market research, by:

• Reading company records
• Examining the current economic conditions
• Researching relevant technological developments

When assembling your market research you may just want provide a high-level summary of the industry trends, like this competitor analysis example shows:

Or you may want to dive into detail on the demographics of a particular consumer segment, like this:

But if you’re a consultant or advisor struggling to get buy-in from skeptical stakeholders, the report below would be ideal. Covering everything from market forecasts to consumer profiles, it can help you get clients and decision-makers on board.

3. Compare product features in a feature comparison matrix

The feature comparison is arguably the most important part of the competitive analysis. Breaking down your product and your competitors’ products feature-by-feature will allow you to see what really sets everyone apart.

In addition to specific product features, here are some attributes that you might include in a feature comparison matrix:

• Product quality
• Number of features
• Ease of use
• Customer support
• Brand/style/image

The most common format for a features analysis is a simple matrix with you and your competitors along one side and all of the relevant features along the other. You can check off or rate how you perform in each area:

But these tables can get pretty long. Another approach is to focus on the things that provide the most value to the user, like in this competitor analysis example from Mint. It only includes ease of use, costs, and benefits:

If you want to visualize your comparisons in an engaging way, you could use a comparison infographic . 

Great resources for this section of your competitive analysis report are product rating sites like Capterra and G2Crowd . They’ll give you an unbiased view of your company and your competitors.

And as with any market research, it’s critical that you speak with real people who use your product and your competitors’ products. That’s the only way to get an accurate picture of how your target customers rate the competition .

4. Summarize your strengths and weaknesses in a SWOT analysis

When you’re conducting research for your competitive analysis, it’s going to be messy. You’ll have a lot of data and it’ll be hard for an outsider to understand.

That’s what makes the SWOT analysis so essential.

A SWOT analysis is a framework for evaluating your competitive position by listing your key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

It can act like a short summary of the rest of your competitive analysis report for anyone who doesn’t have time to dig into the details.

Click the template above to enter our online SWOT analysis maker tool. Customize the template to your liking–no design no-how required.

Here are some questions to kickstart your SWOT analysis:

• Strengths: What are we doing really well (in terms of marketing, products, sales, branding, technology, etc.)?
• Weaknesses: What are we struggling with? What’s holding us back?
• Opportunities: What’s the weakest area for our biggest competitor? Are there any gaps in the market that aren’t current being addressed? What has recently changed in our business or the market?
• Threats: What is our biggest competitor doing much better than us? What new products/features are they working on? What problems aren’t we currently addressing?

In your report, you could arrange your SWOT analysis in a simple list, but it can be helpful to use color-coded quadrants, like the competitor analysis example below. Note how each quadrant is paired with an icon:

5. Show where you fit in the competitive landscape

After summarizing your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, it’s time to look at the bigger picture. It’s time to figure out where every major competitor currently fits into the competitive landscape.

The most popular way of doing this is to identify the two dimensions that are most important for being competitive in your industry and plot them on a matrix, like this one from the Boston Consulting Group:

And this one from G2 Crowd (which looks at market presence and customer satisfaction):

You may want to focus on where you fit in the market landscape based on your own biggest strengths and weaknesses, or the biggest threats and opportunities you identified in the SWOT analysis.

Or, it may be enough just to summarize in words the features and benefits that set your apart from your competitors (which is a great way to end your report on a high note).

Competitor analysis examples for strategic planning

Let’s delve into some competitor analysis examples that can empower your organization to navigate the market effectively.

1. Competitor analysis example for marketing specialists

Imagine this: You are a Marketing Specialist and your goal is to establish a strong online presence and attract a diverse user base. However, you face stiff competition from established players in the market. Here are some things you should look into when doing your competitor analysis:

Competitor analysis focus:

• SEO strategies: Analyze competitors’ websites to understand their SEO strategies. Identify high-ranking keywords , backlink strategies, and content optimization techniques . Alternatively, if you’re running a local business, you might want to analyze and scrape Google Maps listings to better assess how companies are optimizing Google My Business to generate leads.
• Social media engagement: Examine competitors’ social media presence. Evaluate the type of content that garners engagement, the frequency of posts, and audience interactions.
• Online advertising: Investigate competitors’ online advertising campaigns. Are they leveraging Google Ads, social media ads, or other platforms? Assess the messaging, visuals, and targeting criteria.
• Content marketing: Scrutinize competitors’ content marketing efforts. Identify the topics that resonate with their audience, the formats they use (blogs, videos, infographics), and the platforms they prioritize.

Here’s a SWOT analysis template to help you get started:

2. Competitor analysis example for SME business development managers

Imagine this: As the business development manager for a medium sized start up, you are tasked with expanding the client base. The market is crowded with similar service providers, and differentiation is key. When doing your competitor analysis report, look into:

• Client testimonials and case studies: Explore competitors’ websites for client testimonials and case studies. Identify success stories and areas where clients express satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
• Service offerings: Analyze the range of services offered by competitors. Identify gaps in their offerings or areas where you can provide additional value to clients.
• Pricing models: Investigate competitors’ pricing structures. Are they offering packages, subscription models, or customized solutions? Determine whether there’s room for a more competitive pricing strategy .
• Partnerships and collaborations: Explore potential partnerships or collaborations that competitors have formed. This can provide insights into untapped markets or innovative service delivery methods.

Here’s a competitor analysis comparison chart template that you could use:

3. Competitor analysis example for product managers

Imagine this: You are a Product Manager for a consumer electronics company tasked with improving your company’s products and services. The market is buzzing with innovation, and staying ahead requires a deep understanding of competitor products.

• Feature comparison: Conduct a detailed feature-by-feature comparison of your product with competitors. Identify unique features that set your product apart and areas where you can enhance or differentiate.
• User experience (UX): Use a  UX research tool  to evaluate the user experience of competitors’ products. Analyze customer reviews, app ratings, and usability feedback to understand pain points and areas for improvement.
• Technological advancements: Investigate the technological capabilities of competitors. Are they integrating AI, IoT, or other cutting-edge technologies? Assess whether there are emerging technologies you can leverage.
• Product lifecycle management: Examine competitors’ product release cycles. Identify patterns in their product launches and assess whether there are opportunities for strategic timing or gap exploitation.

To help you get started, use this competitive analysis report template to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the product or service

How to present a competitor analysis

Presenting a competitor analysis effectively involves organizing and communicating information about your competitors in a clear and concise manner. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to present a competitor analysis:

• Introduction: Start with a brief introduction to set the stage. Outline the purpose of the competitor analysis and its significance in the current market context.
• Competitor identification: Clearly list and identify the main competitors. Include both direct and indirect competitors. Briefly describe each competitor’s core business and market presence.
• Key metrics and performance: Present key metrics and performance indicators for each competitor. This may include market share, revenue, growth rate, and any other relevant quantitative data.
• SWOT analysis: Conduct a concise SWOT analysis for each competitor. Summarize their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Use a simple visual representation if possible.
• Market positioning: Discuss how each competitor is positioned in the market. This could include their target audience, unique selling propositions, and any specific market niches they occupy. Also, focus on finding keywords , as your competitor’s targeted keywords are the main source of information on their online market performance.
• Strategic moves: Highlight recent strategic moves made by your competitors. This could include product launches, partnerships, mergers, acquisitions, or changes in pricing strategy. Discuss how these moves impact the competitive landscape.
• Recommendations and implications: Based on the analysis, provide recommendations and implications for your company. Identify opportunities to capitalize on competitors’ weaknesses and outline potential threats that need to be addressed. Discuss any adjustments to your own strategy that may be necessary in response to the competitive landscape.

3 tips to improve your competitive analysis report design

How you design your competitive analysis report can have a significant impact on your business success. The right report design can inspire stakeholders to take action based on your findings, while a mediocre design may reflect poorly on your hard work.

Here are a few report design best practices to keep in mind when designing your competitive analysis report:

• Start with a competitive analysis report template
• Keep core design elements like colors and fonts consistent
• Use visuals to summarize important information and keep your audience engaged

1. Start with a competitor analysis template

The quickest way to lose the confidence of your stakeholders is to present a messy, amateur report design. Besides distracting from the content of the report, it might even put your credibility at risk.

Starting with a pre-designed competitor analysis template, like the one below, takes almost all of the design work out of the mix so you can focus on the content (while still impressing your stakeholders).

And if you’re a consultant competing for a project, a pre-designed template may just give you the edge you need to land that client.

Click on any of our templates; you’ll enter our online drag and drop report maker tool. No design know-how required.

2. Keep core design elements like colors and fonts consistent

If you take a look at the competitor analysis template below, you might notice that the designer has switched up the layout from page to page, but many of the other design elements are kept consistent.

That consistency helps the report design feel cohesive while making it easier for readers to quickly skim for key pieces of information.

Here are a few quick guidelines for keeping important design elements consistent:

• Use the same color scheme throughout your report (with one highlight color to draw attention to key takeaways and important numbers)
• Use the same font styles for your headers, subheaders, and body text (with no more than 2-3 font styles per report)
• Use the same style of visuals throughout your report (like flat icons or illustrated icons… but not both)

3. Use visuals to summarize important information and keep your audience engaged

The challenge with a competitive analysis report is that you collect heaps of background research, and you have to condense it into a brief report that your client will actually read.

And written summaries will only get you so far.

Visuals like charts and tables are a much better way to communicate a lot of research quickly and concisely, as seen in the market research summary below.

Even lists can be made more engaging and informative by spacing out list items and giving more emphasis to headers:

The more you can replace descriptive paragraphs and long lists with thoughtful visuals, the more your readers will thank you.

A competitive analysis will allow you to think up effective strategies to battle your competition and establish yourself in your target market.

And a report that communicates the findings of your competitive analysis will ensure stakeholders are on board and in the know.

Now that you know how to design a competitive analysis report, you’re ready to get started:

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How to Perform a Competitor Analysis (Examples & Templates)

Written by: Masooma Memon

Thorough competitor analysis is a crucial aspect of any marketing plan .

It helps you understand how challenging it could be to crack a market, what strategies could work, and how you can best position your brand.

It can also tell you what strategies won’t work, what the customer’s expectations are and how much they’re willing to pay.

Without it, you likely won’t survive a day in a new market.

You need to study your competition not only when you’re starting out but also periodically after cementing your feet in the market. This way, you can stay on top of your game, consistently growing your market share.

Not sure where to start?

We’ve got an easy, 6-step competitor analysis template for you in this guide. We’ll also share templates to help you document your findings.

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Table of Contents

What is a competitor analysis, the benefits of competitor analysis for businesses, how to conduct a competitor analysis (step-by-step), 10 competitor analysis templates to use right away, ready to try out this competitor analysis template.

Competitor analysis is the strategic research of your competitors to study their strengths and weaknesses.

By taking the time to analyze your current and potential competitors, you can identify areas for improvement. You want to look out for things like their value proposition, product, marketing and sales tactics.

Besides helping you find gaps in the market, studying your competition helps in the following ways:

• Identify ways to outperform your competitors.
• Understand market trends so you can make sure your business is consistently meeting and even exceeding industry standards.
• Learn what your competitors are doing right. This is important for staying relevant in your market and growing your market share.
• Find out how your product is different from other similar products. This helps you improve brand positioning and informs your marketing copy.

A competitor analysis seeks to study all available information on your competitors, including their pricing, differentiators, positioning, product portfolio, strengths and weaknesses.

The steps below will help you uncover all this and more.

Step 1: Create a List of Your Competitors

Chances are you can recall who your competitors are in a breath.

But if you’re new, identifying who your direct and indirect competitors are will take some time.

Keep in mind that direct competitors offer products and services similar to yours, positioning them as a substitute for your business. They also mostly target the same audience.

On the flip side, indirect competitors are businesses that don’t necessarily offer the same product or service. However, their offering can solve the same customer problem that your business solves.

An easy, cost-effective way to identify competitors is by typing in your product type into the Google search bar.

Let’s suppose you have a project management software . A quick Google search on this will turn up names of companies offering the same type of software.

For creating a comprehensive list of competitors, make sure you google synonyms too. This could be a “project management tool” for the example above.

Another useful tactic is to conduct the same research on social media .

Type in what your business does and you’ll see similar business names pop up.

You can also surf hashtags to learn how other companies are using them.

Lastly, if you’re conducting market research interviews , pay attention to the brand names that target buyers mention in their interviews.

Step 2: Study Competitors’ Product Offerings and Market Share

Once you know who your competitors are, start studying them one by one.

Go through their product portfolio. Look at the products they offer, how they position and price them. Record your findings in a worksheet so you can track and analyze the data you’re gathering. Visme allows you to do this quickly and easily.

You can also grab a template from Visme’s template gallery and create a product and pricing sketch for each competitor. This will make it easy for you to visualize individual competitors.

To determine competitors’ market share, use Statista or a similar resource to get your hands on the numbers.

Track and visualize your findings in this template.

Step 3: Perform a SWOT Analysis

A Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis helps you study what competitors are doing to win customers. You can also use it to identify gaps in your market .

For example, let's say a competitor’s customer support team takes pretty long to get back to customers. You can use the information to provide faster customer support and a better experience for customers.

As you hunt for competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, study the following areas:

• Sales strategy
• Brand positioning
• Marketing plan
• Discounts strategy
• Website experience
• Customer support and experience

Running an ecommerce business? Study competitors’ shipping and product return strategies as well.

An effective way to jump-start studying competitors’ strengths, weaknesses and more is through social listening. The goal? To identify what customers are saying about brands on social media channels they use, including chat forums and groups they are a part of.

A similar approach is to study customer reviews. This will help you understand what your competitors’ customers are saying about them.

Are they satisfied with the product quality? Or are they put off by their onboarding process? Do their support requests take long to get answered?

As you go about researching, record your findings in a SWOT analysis template like this one:

If you’re a Visme user, you have the benefit of coordinating your SWOT research efforts with your team.

If you and your business partner are working together on the research work, you can both access and edit the worksheet in Visme at the same time.

To do this, use the Share option from the top right side of your project dashboard in Visme. Select "Share Privately" and add your partner to the project.

From there, you two can collaborate on design , leaving comments for each other.

Step 4: Dig Deeper Into Competitors’ Pricing Strategy

We’ve already mentioned that you need to make notes on how your competitors price their products. But studying their pricing strategy goes deeper.

First, review what discounts competitors offer. Then look at how often they offer discounts.

Studying your competitors’ promo strategies will help you understand how they’re attracting customers and growing sales. It will also give you a good idea of how much the target market is willing to pay and what their expectations are in terms of discounts.

In addition to the manual research to uncover individual competitor pricing, use the same research tools mentioned above — social listening and customer reviews. They'll help identify what customers are saying. Pay attention to how customers respond to the discounts and promotions that competitors run.

Some businesses tend to offer discounts shortly after they launch new products. This can be a turn-off for shoppers who like to shop for the latest collections to stand out from their peers.

Similarly, other businesses extend product deals now and then despite telling customers it’s their last chance to buy.

See if and how that annoys customers and if there’s an opportunity for you to offer something more relevant and unique to the target market.

Step 5: Analyze Competitors’ Marketing Strategy

It’s important to study how competitors are raising brand awareness and moving leads down their marketing funnel .

Begin by identifying where your leading competitors are funneling their resources. Is it PPC they’re investing in? Or are they taking the community-building approach to attract, engage and nurture customers?

Chances are your competitors are big on educating customers, so they’re investing in content marketing .

Also, look at which channels competitors are focusing on. Is it Twitter or Reddit? Or do they have a strong presence on Instagram ?

The answer to this will help you understand where your target audience is present and which marketing channels you should focus on.

Take Clearscope , an SEO content optimization tool, for example. They take an educational approach to their marketing by creating lots of webinar content.

Ahrefs , another SEO tool, on the other hand, is also big on the educational approach. But they create blog content, not webinars.

Step 6: Document Your Research

In this last step, compile all your research in written format.

Create an action plan that includes a tactical list of steps to take. This way, you can discuss and prioritize steps to take with your team. Aim to be concise as you create this competitor analysis document.

If you create a wordy report, nobody will read it. But if you create a document that summarizes your findings and visualizes data in the form of charts and graphs, more people will read and appreciate your hard work.

Want some good news? Visme makes it uber-simple to create easy-to-read graphs and charts . It can help you create an easily shareable and visually engaging analysis document.

Design graphs using templates like the one below:

Alternatively, create new charts in your presentation or report .

All you have to do is to head to Charts & Graphs on the left side of your design dashboard and choose the type of chart you want to create.

From there, Visme gives you a chart to enter data so it can create a custom graph for your project. You can resize the graph you create, tweak its color, animate it and add other interacgive effects.

When you are done designing your document you can easily share it with the rest of your team . Head to the Share button at the top right corner of your design dashboard.

Now select Share Privately from the left side and give permission to team members. Choose whether they can view your work, comment on it, or edit it.

If you prefer to get a link for the work you’ve created, simply grab it from the bottom of the page and share it with your team.

By going into Advanced Settings on the left side, followed by Privacy . You can also allow your team to download the competitor analysis report as a PDF.

And, finally, for the templates that we promised:

1. Retail Store Competitor Analysis Infographic Template

Use this infographic template to record your competitors’ pricing, unique selling proposition (USP), revenue and more.

Since the information is arranged in a table format, you can easily study how each competitor stands against another and how they compare to business.

2. Competitor Analysis Interactive Presentation Template

If you’re looking to pitch some growth ideas to your executive team, this interactive competitor analysis template is for you.

It’s neatly designed so that all information is easy to read.

There are a handful of slides in the template that use tables to compare competitors. You can also always add more slides or remove some to suit your needs.

3. Logistics Firm Competitor Analysis Infographic Template

This is the perfect template for studying and comparing two competitors.

If you prefer, you can also use the beautifully designed template to analyze your business against your leading competitor.

And if need be, you can add another row for comparing another competitor.

4. Edtech Company Competitor Analysis Infographic Template

This is another competitor analysis template to pitch two competitors against one another.

What makes it different from the template above is that it arranges all the comparative pointers at the center. This way, you won’t need to keep looking to the left side to see which pointer you’re studying.

5. Sales Consultant Competitor Analysis Worksheet Template

This is a great template to record findings on each competitor.

By using it, you can easily get a snapshot of each of your competitor’s free and paid products, USP, features, target market and the marketing channels they use.

6. Media and Marketing Agency Competitor Analysis Worksheet Template

This template is perfect for recording not just your competitors’ products, features and pricing but also their SWOT analysis.

Consequently, this competitor analysis template can serve as your readable database with all your research findings.

7. Nonprofit SWOT Analysis Infographic Template

If you’re looking to record your competitor’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, then this template is perfect.

And if you’re conducting several competitors’ SWOT analyses, make sure you use this template for each one of them.

8. TrackFast Technologies Sales Battlecard Template

This competitor analysis template is useful for comparing your business with your leading competition.

As well as a comparative table, it also features space to record other essential details such as company overview, key differentiators, customer pain points and benefits.

9. Design Agency Competitor Analysis Worksheet Template

This one is a simple, minimally-designed competitor analysis template for comparing various competitors.

If you need to add another column, you can easily do so by editing the template in Visme.

10. Design Tool Competitor Analysis Infographic Template

Lastly, we’ve got this competitor analysis template.

Its best feature is that the template divides each column into sub-categories, which makes it easy to analyze each aspect.

For example, within the product column, you can easily learn about a competitor’s product features, pricing and USP.

So you see, competitor analysis is critical for tapping into and growing in a market.

But remember, analyzing your competitors and their moves is only part of the task. The other part involves documenting your findings in an easy-to-read and understandable way. This is key to making sure your team implements the findings from the research.

Want to start recording your findings? Sign up for Visme’s document creator for free today and start documenting actionable takeaways.

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About the Author

Masooma Memon is a pizza-loving freelance writer by day and a novel nerd by night. She crafts research-backed, actionable blog posts for SaaS and marketing brands who aim to employ quality content to educate and engage with their audience.

Business Essay Examples

13 Business Essay Examples for Students

14 min read

Published on: May 1, 2023

Last updated on: Jan 30, 2024

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Are you struggling to figure out the structure, research, or data required to make your essay stand out? Or frustrated by the lack of inspiration and ideas for your essay?

But don't give up yet! We have a powerful solution that will make your essay writing a breeze. Our list of business essay examples is here to help! 

We have compiled expertly written business essay examples that will illustrate how to write a striking business essay.

With our examples, you'll be able to see how to structure your essay and generate creative ideas for your topic. And our tips will help you make the most of these examples.

So, let's dive in and get ready to learn!

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What is a Business Essay?

A business essay is a type of academic writing that focuses on business-related topics and issues. These essays can cover a wide range of topics such as marketing, finance, management, entrepreneurship, and more.

The importance of business essay lies in presenting a well-researched and informed analysis. To do this effectively, writers need to conduct extensive research and analysis on the topic at hand.

Referring to examples of business essays can help you gain insight into the structure, tone, and content of a well-written essay.

Business Essay Examples For Students

Here is a list of business writing examples

Business Essay Examples Pdf

Business Essay Example Grade 10

Business Essay Example Grade 11

A Level Business Essay Examples

University Business Essay Examples

International Business Essay Examples

Short Essay About Business

College Essay About Starting A Business

Types of Business Essay with Examples

When it comes to business essay writing, there are several different types that you might encounter. 

Here's a brief overview of each type, including their characteristics and an example of each.

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Case Studies

A case study is an in-depth analysis of a specific business situation or problem. It involves extensive research and data analysis to provide recommendations.

Case studies often showcase the application of theory to real-world business scenarios.

Research Papers

Research papers involve a more academic approach to business writing. They typically require an extensive literature review, data analysis, and original research. 

Business research papers aim to contribute new knowledge to the field of business. These often involve a hypothesis or research question.

Argumentative Essays

Argumentative business essays aim to persuade the reader to adopt a particular point of view or take a specific action. They present an argument and use evidence and logic to support their claims. 

Argumentative essays can address various business topics such as management practices, ethical issues, or market trends.

White Papers

A white paper is a document that provides a detailed explanation of a particular issue or problem, often with recommendations or solutions. 

White papers are typically used to educate stakeholders about a specific topic. These are often used in the business-to-business (B2B) context.

Comparative Essays 

Comparative business essays compare and contrast two or more topics or ideas. They typically analyze the similarities and differences between the topics to evaluate their pros and cons. 

Comparative essays can focus on various aspects such as products, companies, markets, or strategies.

How to Structure Your Business Essays

As you begin writing your business essay, it's important to structure it in a clear and organized way. 

Here's a step-by-step guide with business essay samples to help you do just that:

Executive Summary

The executive summary is a brief overview of your entire essay. It should summarize your main points and highlight your recommendations. 

This section should be written after completing the essay, as it gives a clear picture of what the essay covers. 

Here is how you start a business essay sample:

Introduction

The introduction sets the stage for the rest of the essay. It should introduce the topic, provide background information, and explain the purpose of the essay. 

Here is a business essay introduction example:

Industry Analysis

In this section, you'll conduct a thorough analysis of the industry in which the business operates. You should examine factors such as competition, market trends, and customer behavior. 

Here is a sample industry analysis

Key Issues or Problems

This section should identify the main issues or problems faced by the business. You should provide evidence to support your claims and analyze the impact of these issues. 

Here is an example paragraph:

Solutions or Recommendation

Here, you'll provide solutions or recommendations to address the issues identified in the previous section. Your solutions should be well-supported and feasible. 

For instance:

Implementation Plan

For this part, you'll outline a plan for implementing the solutions or recommendations you've proposed. This is sort of a description of the business model you suggest. 

This section should be detailed and include specific action steps. 

For example:

Finally, you'll wrap up your essay by summarizing your main points and reiterating your recommendations. 

This section should be clear, concise, and impactful. 

By following this structure, your business essay will be well-organized, coherent, and easy to follow for your readers.

Tips for Using Business Essay Examples Effectively

Now that you have quite a few business essay examples at hand, you should know how to use them effectively:

• Use them as a guide, not a template : While it's great to learn from examples, you should never copy them outright. Instead, use them as a starting point for your own research and writing.
• Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of the essay : Take note of what works well in the example essay, as well as any areas that could be improved. This will help you understand how to make your own essay even better.
• Use them to inform your own research and writing : Pay attention to the research methods, sources, and evidence used in the example essay. This can give you ideas for your own research and help you strengthen your arguments.
• Avoid plagiarism and ensure proper citation: Whenever you use ideas or information from an example, make sure to cite your sources. This will help you avoid plagiarism and maintain academic integrity.

You now have a plenty of business essay examples on different topics to help you get started!

By following our tips and studying the sample essays, you can confidently write your own essays that are clear, concise, and impactful. 

However, if you still find yourself struggling with your business essays, just reach out to our professional business essay writing service . 

We have the best online essay writing service and are ready to provide you a high-quality business. Our writing service has subject specialist writers who can tackle any business essay topic.  

So why wait? Contact us today and let our AI essay writer take your business essays to the next level!

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Essays About Competition: Top 6 Examples and 10 Prompts

As you write about competition, discover our examples of essays about competition and writing prompts to unlock your competitive self.

We live in a highly competitive time, and one might easily say that competition makes the world go round. Indeed, doing your best to get ahead of others has perks, such as fame, money, promotion in the workplace, or esteem from your parents if you’re a student.

Beyond these immediate rewards, competition can help develop self-confidence, discipline, and tenacity, which help people survive and thrive. So unleash your competitive side by writing a thrilling essay about competition, and read our examples to inspire you.

6 Helpful Essay Examples

1. is lack of competition strangling the u.s. economy by david wessel, 2. why competition is good for kids (and how to keep it that way) by devan mcguinness, 3.  how great power competition has changed by shivshankar menon, 4. how life became an endless, terrible competition by daniel markovits, 5. how to create a successful partnership with your competition by norma watenpaugh , 6. the importance of positive coaching in competition by oscar ponteri, 10 exciting writing prompts on essays about competition, 1. how schools can encourage healthy competition, 2. how competition builds self-esteem, 3. importance of competition laws, 4. business competition in the digital age, 5. competition vs. cooperation, 6. dealing with sibling competition, 7. preparing for a competition, 8. competition in mother-daughter relationships, 9. love is not a competition, 10. competition in the animal kingdom.

“If we’re slow to take action to bolster competition — perhaps because incumbents successfully wield their power or because of a distaste for regulation of any sort — we risk diluting the dynamism of the economy and restricting the flow of innovations and new ideas, darkening the prospects for our children and grandchildren.”

The essay looks at the decline of competition in various US industries. In particular, it investigates factors — profits, investment, business dynamism, and prices — that can indicate the robustness of competition in a country. Falling competition is worrisome in economies as it enables incumbent firms to abuse their power and block new entrants, restricting consumers’ options for more affordable and better quality goods and services.

“Besides setting them up for wins and losses later in life—hey, they won’t always land that big promotion—competitive activities help them develop important skills they’ll use well into adulthood, like taking turns, developing empathy, and tenacity.”

Well-meaning parents might disapprove of competition to shield children from getting disheartened at losing. But child development experts say that competition has lifelong benefits for children, reinforcing the value of hard work, thinking positively, and being a good team player. However, parents should be careful in delineating healthy competition from unhealthy ones.

“Competition among great powers has extended to the sea lanes that carry the world’s energy and trade and is visible in the naval buildup by all the major powers that we see today—a buildup over the last ten years which is unmatched in scale in history.”

With the influence among global superpowers now spread more evenly, coupled with the fact that their interventions in conflict areas have only yielded prolonged battles, global superpowers are now more focused on their geopolitical reach. But some factors, such as their dependence on other superpowers for economic growth, also compel them to go beyond their horizons. 

“Outrage at nepotism and other disgraceful forms of elite advantage-taking implicitly valorizes meritocratic ideals. Yet meritocracy itself is the bigger problem, and it is crippling the American dream. Meritocracy has created a competition that, even when everyone plays by the rules, only the rich can win.

Instead of intensely engaging in competition, why not just stop competing? This essay laments how meritocracy destroyed people’s relationships at home, all for advancing in the workplace. While throwing competition out of the window seems like an ambitious proposal, the author offers a glint of hope using the case of a policy framework created during the Great Depression. 

“In my experience, working with your competition is not an intuitive thing for most people. It takes a strong value proposition to make the risks and effort worthwhile.”

When cooperating with your competition becomes a key to your goals, you resort to a strategy called “co-opetition,” short for cooperative competition. This essay fleshes out the situations where such alliances work and provides tips on making the most out of these relationships while avoiding risks.

“I have learned that competition holds incredible power… It’s all about how you utilize it. How our youth coaches frame competition will dictate the way we compete beyond athletics for our entire life.”

A high-school student shares his profound thoughts on the essence of positive coaching in the life of athletes even beyond the field. His beliefs stem from his experiences with a cold-hearted coach that turned around his love for sports. 

To start, cite the numerous benefits of competition in developing well-rounded students. Make sure to back these up with research. Then, write about how you think schools can create an atmosphere conducive to healthy competition. Provide tips, for example, calling on teachers to encourage students to participate and motivate them to do their best instead of keeping their eyes on the trophy. You may also share how your school is promoting healthy competition.

Competition can drive you to improve and build the foundations for your self-esteem. For this essay, research the scientific links between healthy competition and self-confidence. Look also into how competition can promote a mindset that goes for growth and not just the gold medal. Some who lose may see themselves as a failure and give up rather than seeing their loss as an opportunity to learn and do better. 

Competition or antitrust laws aim to ensure robust market competition by banning anti-competitive acts and behaviors. First, briefly explain your country’s competition law and enumerate acts that are prohibited under this law. Then, to help readers understand more clearly, cite a recent case, for example, a merger and acquisition, where your antitrust office had to intervene to protect the interest of consumers. 

The borderless digital world has made the competition very cutthroat, with the demands for innovation at a neck-breaking pace. But one advantage is how it has somewhat leveled the playing field between big and small businesses. Enumerate the pros and cons of the digital age to business competition and cite what emerging trends businesses should watch out for.

Should we be more competitive or cooperative? Or should we stop pitting one against the other and begin balancing both? Provide a well-researched answer and write an argumentative essay where you take a position and, with research backing, explain why you take this position. To effectively execute this writing style and its techniques, see our ultimate guide on argumentative essays .

Competition among siblings goes as old as the story of Abel and Cain. It can disrupt family peace and become a vicious, toxic cycle that can last into their adult years if unresolved. What are the other negative impacts of sibling competition on the family and the well-being of siblings in the long term? Identify these and research what experts have to say on managing sibling rivalry. 

How do you prepare your mind and body for a competition? If you regularly participate in competitions, this is the right topic prompt for you. So, share tips that have worked to your advantage and find science-backed recommendations on how one can be ready on competition day both psychologically and physically. For example, studies have shown that visualizing your performance as a success can increase motivation, confidence, and self-efficacy.

Describe the factors that trigger competition between mothers and daughters. You can cite aspects of the gender theory identity developed by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud . Then, differentiate the nature of the competition and its different stages as the daughter grows. Finally, help mothers navigate this confusing period and deal with strength and enormous understanding.

This quote is best for couples who fight like cats and dogs. For this writing prompt, explain how seeing your partner as a competition can destroy a romantic relationship. Then, offer tips on how your readers can make amends with their partners, reconnect with them and see them as allies. After all, relationships need intensive teamwork.

Write an informational essay about competition in the animal kingdom. For example, you might have to differentiate interspecific competition from the intraspecific competition. You might also have to flesh out the differences between competition and predation. Then cite the factors that trigger competition and its effects on biodiversity.

Before publishing, make sure your essay is error-free by using the best grammar checkers, including the top-rated Grammarly.  Find out why Grammarly is highly recommended in this Grammarly review .

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Understand your competitors

Knowing who your competitors are, and what they are offering, can help you to make your products, services and marketing stand out. It will enable you to set your prices competitively and help you to respond to rival marketing campaigns with your own initiatives.

You can use this knowledge to create marketing strategies that take advantage of your competitors' weaknesses, and improve your own business performance. You can also assess any threats posed by both new entrants to your market and current competitors. This knowledge will help you to be realistic about how successful you can be.

This guide explains how to analyse who your competitors are, how to research what they're doing and how to act on the information you gain.

Who are your competitors?

What you need to know about your competitors, learning about your competitors, hearing about your competitors, how to act on the competitor information you get.

All businesses face competition. Even if you're the only restaurant in town you must compete with cinemas, bars and other businesses where your customers will spend their money instead of with you. With increased use of the Internet to buy goods and services and to find places to go, you are no longer just competing with your immediate neighbours. Indeed, you could find yourself competing with businesses from other countries.

Your competitor could be a new business offering a substitute or similar product that makes your own redundant.

Competition is not just another business that might take money away from you. It can be another product or service that's being developed and which you ought to be selling or looking to license before somebody else takes it up.

And don't just research what's already out there. You also need to be constantly on the lookout for possible new competition .

You can get clues to the existence of competitors from:

• local business directories
• your local Chamber of Commerce
• advertising
• press reports
• exhibitions and trade fairs
• questionnaires
• searching on the Internet for similar products or services
• information provided by customers
• flyers and marketing literature that have been sent to you - quite common if you're on a bought-in marketing list
• searching for existing patented products that are similar to yours
• planning applications and building work in progress

Monitor the way your competitors do business. Look at:

• the products or services they provide and how they market them to customers
• the prices they charge
• how they distribute and deliver
• the devices they employ to enhance customer loyalty and what back-up service they offer
• their brand and design values
• whether they innovate - business methods as well as products
• their staff numbers and the calibre of staff that they attract
• how they use IT - for example, if they're technology-aware and offer a website and email
• who owns the business and what sort of person they are
• their annual report - if they're a public company
• their media activities - check their website as well as local newspapers, radio, television and any outdoor advertising

Consult Corporations Canada’s Naming a corporation and the Registraire des entreprises' database in Québec to check the availability of a company name, and the Canadian Trade-marks Database for the availability of a trade mark.

How they treat their customers

Find out as much as possible about your competitors' customers, such as:

• who they are
• what products or services different customers buy from them
• what customers see as your competitors' strengths and weaknesses
• whether there are any long-standing customers
• if they've had an influx of customers recently

What they're planning to do

Try to go beyond what's happening now by investigating your competitors' business strategy, for example:

• what types of customer they're targeting
• what new products they're developing
• what financial resources they have

Read about your competitors. Look for articles or ads in the trade press or mainstream publications. Read their marketing literature . Check their entries in directories and phone books. If they are an online business, ask for a trial of their service.

Are they getting more publicity than you, perhaps through networking or sponsoring events?

If your competitor is a public company, read a copy of their annual report.

Go to exhibitions

At exhibitions and trade fairs check which of your competitors are also exhibiting. Look at their stands and promotional activities. Note how busy they are and who visits them.

Look at competitors' websites . Find out how they compare to yours. Check any interactive parts of the site to see if you could improve on it for your own website. Is the information free of charge? Is it easy to find?

Business websites often give much information that businesses haven't traditionally revealed - from the history of the company to biographies of the staff.

Use a search engine to track down similar products. Find out who else offers them and how they go about it.

Websites can give you good tips on what businesses around the globe are doing in your industry sector.

Organisations and reference sources

• Your trade or professional association, if applicable.
• The local Chamber of Commerce.
• Directories and survey reports in any business reference library.
• Our Strategic Information Centre

Speak to your competitors. Phone them to ask for a copy of their brochure or get one of your staff or a friend to drop by and pick up their marketing literature.

You could ask for a price list or enquire what an off-the-shelf item might cost and if there's a discount for volume. This will give you an idea at which point a competitor will discount and at what volume.

Phone and face-to-face contacts will also give you an idea of the style of the company, the quality of their literature and the initial impressions they make on customers.

It's also likely you'll meet competitors at social and business events. Talk to them. Be friendly - they're competitors not enemies. You'll get a better idea of them - and you might need each other one day, for example in collaborating to grow a new market for a new product.

Listen to your customers and suppliers

Make the most of contacts with your customers. Don't just ask how well you're performing - ask which of your competitors they buy from and how you compare.

Use meetings with your suppliers to ask what their other customers are doing. They may not tell you everything you want to know, but it's a useful start.

Use your judgement with any information they volunteer. For instance, when customers say your prices are higher than the competition they may just be trying to negotiate a better deal.

Evaluate the information you find about your competitors. This should tell you whether there are gaps in the market you can exploit. It should also indicate whether there is a saturation of suppliers in certain areas of your market, which might lead you to focus on less competitive areas.

Draw up a list of everything that you've found out about your competitors, however small.

Put the information into three categories:

• what you can learn from and do better
• what they're doing worse than you
• what they're doing the same as you

What you can learn from and do better

If you're sure your competitors are doing something better than you, you need to respond and make some changes. It could be anything from improving customer service, assessing your prices and updating your products, to changing the way you market yourself, redesigning your literature and website and changing your suppliers.

Try to innovate not imitate. Now you've got the idea, can you do it even better, add more value?

Your competitors might not have rights over their actual ideas, but remember the rules on patents, copyright and design rights. For more information, consult Intellectual property as a business tool .

What they're doing worse than you

Exploit the gaps you've identified. These may be in their product range or service, marketing or distribution, even the way they recruit and retain employees.

Customer service reputation can often provide the difference between businesses that operate in a very competitive market. Renew your efforts in these areas to exploit the deficiencies you've discovered in your competitors.

But don't be complacent about your current strengths. Your current offerings may still need improving and your competitors may also be assessing you. They may adopt and enhance your good ideas.

What they're doing the same as you

Why are they doing the same as you, particularly if you're not impressed by other things they do? Perhaps you both need to make some changes.

Analyse these common areas and see whether you've got it right. And even if you have, your competitor may be planning an improvement.

Original document, Understand your competitors , © Crown copyright 2009 Source: Business Link UK (now GOV.UK/Business ) Adapted for Québec by Info entrepreneurs

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197 Competitors Analysis Research Papers & Essay Examples

📝 competitors analysis research paper examples, 💡 essay ideas on competitors analysis, 👍 good competitors analysis essay examples to write about, 🎓 simple research paper examples with competitors analysis, ✍️ competitors analysis essay examples for college.

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How to Overcome Your Competitors in Business

The big players on the market make it hard for small businesses to compete. Here are 5 tips you can follow to use this competition to your advantage.

Regardless of your industry, running a small business is certainly challenging. Aside from the financial constraints, manpower requirements, and operational difficulties, one of the biggest challenges you have to face is competition. However, as they always say, business is a competition and competition is in itself a business. The big players in the market, with their massive marketing budgets and unmatched purchasing powers, makes it hard to compete.

While rivalry might seem like a negative thing for your business, it has its own share of advantages. Although it’s true that competition makes getting customers and sales difficult, on the flipside it encourages you to strive harder and push yourself to the limits in order to be able to manage your business well. Additionally, it forces you to stay focused and persevere on improving the quality of the products and services you offer.

Here are some ways to capitalize on the positive side of competition and use its advantages to make your small business successful in the long run.

Pick your niche and promote your strengths

As a small business, it’s impossible to compete and win against the biggest rivals within the industry. But you can start slowly by choosing a market segment and gradually building your own following. Whatever trade you’re in, the industry is so vague that there are untapped categories waiting to be discovered. Finding a niche can be a daunting and time-consuming experience, however, recognizing the right market and selling to the correct customers allows business growth beyond strict competition.

Likewise, capitalize on the strengths of your products or services. Find out what makes you stand out from the crowd, whether it’s an offer that is better than the rest or an exclusive product that can’t be found elsewhere. The key element here is to know your competitive advantage and use it to leverage your business.

• Instead of imitating your opponents’ strategy, focus on your own advantages.
• Use unique selling points to highlight your brand and attract customers.
• Don’t concentrate on having a broad range of clients, but target smaller, more specific patrons.

Focus on great customer service and connect with your audience

Another tip on how to overcome your competitors in business is to provide impeccable customer service at all times. Even if you have the greatest products and the most affordable services, without immaculate customer service no one will stay loyal to your business. Make this your top most priority and always exceed customer expectations by solving their problems in the fastest time possible, responding to their queries, and listening to their suggestions.

Compared to big corporations, who don’t have the time to incorporate feelings when giving customer service, this is where you can differentiate yourself as a small business. As much as possible, develop a more personal and stronger connection with your clients. Appreciate their presence and engage with them through different platforms. Connecting with your audience is equally a great way to increase your customer base.

• Send handwritten thank you cards or notes whenever you can.
• Don’t use scripted responses when dealing with customer complaints.
• Use social media to easily communicate with your customers.

Innovate your business processes

The competition in business is undeniably tough and that’s a fact you’ll just have to accept. To outshine your competitors, it is important to make your business process as smooth and efficient as possible, and one way to do this is through innovation. While big companies have the luxury to build a new platform or spend thousands (or even millions) of dollars just to try out a new technology, as a small business you don’t have such resources to modernize your business.

The good news is that innovation doesn’t need to be bold and glamorous. It can be as simple as improving the existing process and introducing new twists to make the structure suitable for your business. Additionally, you can use tools that can make daily tasks run faster and more efficiently. Some areas where you can use tools to improve operations include but are not limited to:

• The use of CRM to improve your ordering system and product inventory. You can even customize your sales CRM to fit your sales cycle.
• A web ordering system where customers can easily buy your products or services.
• Software for tracking your expenses, settling bills, and managing payments.

Keep an eye on your competitors

Copying your competitors does no good for the success of your business, but that doesn’t mean you should disregard them either. While focusing on your own brand and sales and marketing strategies, keep a close eye on your rivals. Knowing the current market, announcements, and latest innovations of your competitors help you understand where there are opportunities.

Most of the time, small businesses are not considered a big threat to top companies working in the same trade, so they won’t pay much attention to what you’re planning and doing. Use this as a good starting point to go ninja on your competitors and try to take their market in a silent battle. Keep in mind that to beat your competition, don’t focus on them however never ignore what they are doing.

• Hire someone to be a mystery shopper with your top rivals.
• Keep an eye on all their social media accounts and note their strategies.
• Once in a while, visit their website to check their latest offers or products.

Attract the best employees

The last but definitely not the least tip on how to overcome your competitors in business is to build a powerhouse team of employees. From serving customers to facing clients and creating marketing plans, behind every successful business are hardworking employees. They are the face and backbone of your company, and they contribute a special part to the success of your trade.

Hire the best and most talented employees you could ever employ. Your rivals might have 100 employees, which is far more than your team, but quality over quantity will make a huge difference to your business. Remember to focus on having the greatest employees, not more employees. Here are some tips on how to attract talent for your small business:

• When listing vacant positions, publicize them on all platforms available.
• Extend your hiring and application process if the post is not urgent.
• Thoroughly discuss the advantages and benefits of working with your company.

Pros and Cons of Competition Essay

Introduction, pros of competition, cons of competition, reference list.

As Geroski (p.1) argues, with the current situation of the corporate world and ever-changing trends in people’s lifestyles, the ability of a business or individuals to thrive well within a certain environment, depends on their ability to compete positively and effectively. That is, because competition is inevitable in all spheres of life, survival in the current competitive world depends on individuals’ survival strategies of defeating their opponents. For example, in any working scenario, managements judge employees’ work using their level of work proficiency and output. Employees’ performance levels depend primarily on their ability to maximize their potentials in order to have a competitive advantage over their fellow workers.

The same thing happens in business, competition being the primary determinant of a business’s ability to thrive and survive in a market full of producers or services providers with the same products. Further, even in learning institutions, the ability of a student to outshine others depends on one’s ability to compete effectively through maximization of their potentials and utilization of the available resources. Although this is the case, in uncontrolled scenarios, competition can be very detrimental to the performance level of individuals, because individuals are always ready to do anything and use whatever is at their disposal to achieve desired outcomes. Therefore, although competition has many advantages, which include increased productivity, improved quality of work output, meeting of deadlines, and increased profit margins, it has also many associated disadvantages, for example, it increases job stress, creates unhealthy competition, and it may kill teamwork spirit (Lewis, 1997, p.1).

Competition primarily involves peoples struggle to outshine their opponents in whatever they are doing be it in business, school, or work. In a healthy competing environment, individuals or organizations; whether they are tangible goods producers, for example, producers of pain killers, or service offering, for example, dental services, competition takes many forms. The most prevalent ways that organizations use to have a competent advantage over their opponents include, improving the quality of their products, varying prices, and adding innovative ideas to their products of services. One primary advantage of competition is increase production and general work output, which acts as a primary mechanism of controlling prices of essential goods. Achieving of success in any activity that one engages in is one of the primary goals of any individual.

Therefore, because the level of success depends on the amount of effort individuals put in whatever they are doing, in an endeavor to defeat opponents in the same industry, most individuals will use whatever is at their disposal to achieve their desired level of success. Through such efforts, people are able to stretch their potentials to higher levels of success, leading to increased production whereby, if such products or services meet the market demand, then likelihoods of increased profits are high. In life, nobody wants to be a failure or be associated with failure. Hence, to fit in the present competitive world, individuals have to put more effort in their daily endeavors, to meet and overcome any obstacles that they face everyday, making competition a primary motivational factor in any life endeavor (Lewis, 1997, p.1).

Going hand in hand with increased profits is increased product qualities, because of increased competition. Every producer of a good or provider of a service always aims to win buyers’ hearts and trust. To achieve this, producers and service providers have to improve their production process to meet the market standards or their buyer’s needs. Therefore, to meet such needs individuals have to formulate innovative ideas of improving the qualities of whatever they are offering, for this will define their level of success in the market. Production or offering of goods and services that do not meet consumer’s needs and, which are detrimental to consumers’ health may make an individual or organization tom loose its customers trust and loyalty; hence, leading to looses. On the other hand, in a learning or working scenario, because managements judge workers’ performance levels using their work output quality and level, through competition, workers are likely to enhance their working methodologies, in an endeavor to receive recognition and achieve success (Shukla, 2009, p.1).

In addition to increasing work output and quality of produced products, competition greatly boosts the formulation of new or innovative ideologies, depending on the prevailing conditions. Through vigorous and health competition, individuals will always struggle to formulate new production and marketing ideologies in an endeavor win a bigger segment of the market. Stiff and health competitions bring forth many working, learning, and production challenges, which in most cases, demand innovative ideologies necessary to counter such challenges. For innovational ideals to meet the challenges of competition, individuals must set boundaries, meet time deadlines, formulate new working strategies, and methods of ensuring they beat their competitors in the same fields. Hence, competition plays another crucial role of ensuring individuals do things in the desired manner and within set limits, as this defines the standards of judging their level of achievement (Singh, 2003, pp. 1-2).

Although competition has such advantages, sometimes in an endeavor to beat their opponents, most individuals or organizations may involve themselves in unhealthy practices hence, making the significance of competition questionable. One primary disadvantage of competition is creation of an unhealthy business, study, or working environment. The level competition in learning or working environments never takes into consideration the differences in people’s potentials. In addition to not considering personal abilities, the level of competition always favors well developed or resource endowed individuals or business in certain aspects of competition. For example, in any production process or service offering process, well developed or experienced practitioners of a certain field are more advantaged than new entrants into the field or production process; hence, making it hard for such new entrants to succeed. In addition, well-developed and experienced individuals have the expertise in their areas of specialization; hence, customers will always prefer them to new entrants, although the new entrants may be offering better goods and services (Philipose, Kamat, & Ananthanarayan, 2009, p.1).

Sometimes beating competitors can be one of the most stressing factors, as it requires formulation of new ideologies, pumping of more resources into any activity one engages in, and finding new methodologies of having control over an activity that one is doing or being the most successful. For example, in a learning scenario, for students to excel in their endeavors, although it is to their advantage, students have to spend extra time reading, consulting, and formulating appropriate strategies of defeating their opponents. The same is the case in business, as individuals have to find new methodologies, increase their work ratios, speed and proficiency, or formulate new working methodologies, necessary to enable them beat deadlines. In stressing working or learning environments likelihoods of individuals suffering work burnout and other health complications, associate with work stress, for example, ulcers are high (Ganster & Ivancevich, 1986, pp. 7-27).

In addition to making wok very stressful, unhealthy competitions negatively affects teamwork spirit or cooperation among individuals doing the same task. That is, because of human selfishness and egocentrism, most individuals working in a competing work scenario will rarely assist their co-workers or friends, although they may have the potential to do so. For example, because every individual may be struggling for managements to recognize and award them, rarely will such individuals cooperate in doing an act, or offering some requested help, as most individuals will never want their friends to excel than them (Lewis, 1997, p.1).

In conclusion, to curb the negative effects that may result due to unhealthy competition, and to ensure competition is beneficial to all participating individuals, it is of great significance for all competitors to create health competing environments. A health competing environment will guarantee formulation and implementation of innovative ideas, which are beneficial and not detrimental to all participating parties.

Ganster, D. C., & Ivancevich, J. m. (1986). Job stress: from theory to suggestions. London: Haworth Press. Web.

Gerowski, P. A. (2004). Is the competition policy worthy it? Web.

Lewis, M. B. (1997). Pros and cons of competitions. Web.

Philiposse, M., Kamat, V., & Ananthanarayan, R. (2009). The pros and cons of market Competition. Money Matters. Web.

Shukla, A. (2009). Competition at work place- advantages and disadvantages of competition . Web.

Singh, A. (2003). Emerging markets: the significance of competition and corporate governance for future economic growth. Web.

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Home — Essay Samples — Business — Company — Competition as a Company’s Biggest Threat

Competition as a Company’s Biggest Threat

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Coffee customers rank Starbucks last among competitors in key category, report says

Only 51% of customers believe the seattle-based coffee chain is affordable, a report shows.

FOX Business Flash top headlines for October 7

Check out what's clicking on FoxBusiness.com.

When it comes to affordability, Starbucks falls behind its competition, at least according to a new report.

Only 51% of customers believe the Seattle-based coffee chain is affordable, data collected by Technomic via Restaurant Business states. That ranking is the lowest among seven large coffee shop chains. 

So who nabbed the top spot? Canada's Tim Hortons, which has locations in 15 U.S. states, according to its website. Seventy-nine percent of Tim Hortons' customers surveyed said they believe it was affordable.

Dunkin' and Peet's Coffee tied for the second spot at 74%, followed by Dutch Bros at third with 73%.

CHICKEN JOINTS JOIN GROWING NUMBER OF RESTAURANTS OFFERING $5 MEAL DEALS

A Starbucks store in Yantai, China, on Jan. 31, 2024. (Costfoto/NurPhoto via / Getty Images)

Restaurant Business, a sister company of Technomic, says Starbucks customers have higher incomes than patrons at other coffee chains.  

Starbucks did not immediately respond to a FOX Business request for comment. 

MCDONALD'S GIVE CLASSIC MENU ITEM A 'MAKEOVER' AMID PUSH TO REVERSE SALES DECLINE

Back in May, a nonprobability survey conducted by LendingTree found 78% of consumers now consider fast food to be a "luxury" purchase due to how expensive the meals have become.

Half of those polled said they view fast food as a luxury because they are struggling financially. This is especially true among Americans who make less than $30,000 a year (71%), parents with young children (58%), and Gen Zers (58%).

People line up at a Dunkin' store inside Terminal A at Newark Liberty International Airport on May 17, 2024, in New Jersey. (Gary Hershorn / Getty Images)

Americans love their fast food, but a majority say they are pulling back on their consumption due to high prices. The findings show 3 out of 4 Americans typically eat fast food once a week, but 62% of respondents said they are eating it less frequently due to the cost.

Companies took notice, and over the summer began a value meal war. 

MCDONALD'S TARGETS ADULTS WITH NOSTALGIC 'COLLECTOR'S MEAL' AVAILABLE THIS MONTH

The $5 meal deal started at McDonald's June 25, 2024. (McDonald's USA / Fox News)

McDonald's launched a $5 value meal in June that they are continuing until the end of the year. Popeyes, KFC, Subway and Jimmy John's all did, as well. 

Along with discounted prices, companies like Chick-fil-A brought back fan-favorite limited-time menu items. 

CHICK-FIL-A BRINGS BACK LONG-AWAITED MENU ITEM AND FAN FAVORITE: 'OVERWHELMINGLY POSITIVE FEEDBACK'

Chick-fil-A brought back the fan-favorite banana pudding milkshake in August 2024. (Chick-fil-A / Fox News)

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ON FOX BUSINESS  

Last month, Starbucks announced that the chief executive of Starbucks North America , Michael Conway, had decided to retire, and will not be replaced. Conway, who assumed the role of North America CEO in April, will stay with the company through the end of November as an executive adviser before his official departure after 11 years at the company.

FOX Business' Breck Dumas contributed to this report. 

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6 Best HubSpot Alternatives and Competitors in 2024

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• Best for industry specializations: Pipedrive
• Best for ongoing project management: Monday CRM
• Best for product development: ClickUp
• Best for advanced marketing tools: Zoho CRM
• Best for streamlined task management: Capsule
• Best for integrating with Google Workspace: Copper CRM

HubSpot offers a very popular CRM software, along with a suite of other marketing and service tools. HubSpot’s feature-rich platform helps businesses of a multitude of sizes and industries generate and manage leads from start to finish with the help of native and third-party integrations. It is also known for its free marketing and sales tools like the free meeting scheduler, live chat software, and dashboard and reporting software.

While HubSpot has a mix of core and advanced features , it’s always beneficial to consider similar providers before committing to a solution.

Top HubSpot alternatives comparison

Some of the top alternatives and competitors of HubSpot include Pipedrive, monday CRM, Zoho CRM, and ClickUp. I’ve decided to compare these alternatives to HubSpot’s most competitive offerings, such as the free-for-life version of the software, marketing capabilities, AI-powered tools, and reporting functionality.

Pipedrive: Best for industry specializations

Not only can Pipedrive be a solution for startups through enterprises, it can also adapt as a CRM to fit the needs of specific markets and industries. For example, a retail company can use Pipedrive’s features to optimize their operations in person or online, gain product insights, organize customer data, and build out customer loyalty programs. This is also the case for niche industries like consumer manufacturing, automotive sales, healthcare, higher education, nonprofits, recruitment, and architecture.

Why I chose Pipedrive

Pipedrive is a global solution that allows businesses to track existing and forecasted sales pipelines, optimize incoming leads, manage deals with AI-powered tools, and automate the entire sales process so reps can focus on enhancing their customer experience. Pipedrive is an intuitive tool that focuses on tracking deals through pipeline views with custom fields and smart formulas.

Pipedrive and HubSpot both can be customized to fit the needs of a specific industry, but if you want a similar solution with affordable premium tiers plus marketing tools, I recommend checking out monday CRM, Zoho CRM, or Capsule.

For more information, read the full Pipedrive review.

• Essential: $14 per user per month, billed annually, or $24 per user when billed monthly.
• Advanced: $34 per user per month, billed annually, or $44 per user when billed monthly.
• Professional: $49 per user per month, billed annually, or $64 per user when billed monthly.
• Power: $64 per user per month, billed annually, or $79 per user when billed monthly.
• Enterprise: $99 per user per month, billed annually, or $129 per user when billed monthly.
• AI summaries: Receive condensed email briefs for reps to grasp the essentials while also reducing work overload.
• Email segmentation: Deploy targeted email marketing campaigns to customers or leads by creating segmented lists to nurture leads closer to a sale.
• Sales pipeline: Create custom pipelines that match the exact stages of your business’ sales stages.

Pros and cons

Monday CRM: Best for ongoing project management

monday CRM is an intuitive solution that helps businesses store data and information with no-code automations. Users can quickly import data from Excel or API directly into the CRM software, then monday CRM will eliminate overlap of duplicate data. From there, activity management like calls, meetings, and notes are automatically stored. Individual reps or sales managers can keep track of projects, general pipelines, new targets, and team performance from one view.

Why I chose monday CRM

monday CRM is an operational CRM that can automate workflows and tasks while also acting as a central hub for all customer and sales data. With AI-powered tools, robust integrations, and an emphasis on team collaboration, users can manage progress across departments. monday CRM is also a very scalable tool that can be used by companies of any size, from small businesses to enterprises .

While monday CRM can provide a free version of its tool, it is on a case-by-case basis that requires an approved application. If you want an alternative to HubSpot that also has a free version of the tool, I recommend Zoho CRM or Capsule.

For more, head over to the monday CRM review .

• Free version: Basic CRM offerings are only available for students and nonprofit organizations after submitting an application.
• Basic CRM: $12 per user per month when billed annually, or $15 when billed monthly.
• Standard CRM: $17 per user per month when billed annually, or $20 when billed monthly.
• Pro CRM: $28 per user per month when billed annually, or $33 when billed monthly.
• Enterprise CRM: Contact monday.com for a quote.
• Email composition: Receive AI-generated email copy and save suggested templates for quick client outreach.
• Custom automation: Assign leads, set reminders, and get notifications based on preset sales automations.
• Deal pipeline: Customize multiple pipelines without any technical expertise with simple drag-and-drop stages, automations, and activity tracking.

ClickUp: Best for product development

With the unique product development functionality of ClickUp, users can build and automate any sprint cycle. Users have access to sprint reports, kanban views, custom roadmaps, and backlog trackers — all to optimize product development and create an agile workflow. Preset templates help both non-software and software development teams optimize the same software the sales and marketing departments use for enhanced collaboration.

Why I chose ClickUp

ClickUp markets itself as an all-in-one software that offers CRM functionality. The product itself comes with a mix of features for project management, product development, knowledge and resource management, and collaboration. ClickUp offers all of these features with the goal to help businesses improve collaboration, enhance visibility across departments, and automate a lot of the more tedious work.

While ClickUp offers affordable plans, there are some limitations around its marketing and lead generation capabilities. If that’s something you’re after when considering HubSpot alternatives, I suggest Zoho CRM.

• Forever Free: Free for unlimited users, allowing up to 100 MB of storage, collaborative docs, real-time chat, and more.
• Unlimited: $7 per user, per month when billed annually or $10 when billed monthly.
• Business: $12 per user, per month when billed annually or $19 when billed monthly.
• Enterprise: Contact ClickUp directly for a quote.
• Docs: Create and collaborate on documents as a group that automatically save with privacy and sharing controls.
• Time tracking: Track individual rep time across any mobile device with the free Chrome extension, no matter which integrated tool is being used.
• Sprint reports: View digestible reporting dashboards that can measure personal productivity, team workloads, software sprints, marketing campaigns, sales overviews, and so much more.

Zoho CRM: Best for advanced marketing tools

In addition to process management and sales enablement features, Zoho CRM also offers advanced marketing automations. Zoho CRM users can capture customer information through web forms, email campaigns, and even event management. And not only does Zoho CRM help in deploying these campaigns, it can also track success, allow A/B testing, and improve ROI from campaigns over time. All of these tools create collaboration between marketing and sales teams by generating and segmenting new high value leads.

Why I chose Zoho CRM

While Zoho CRM is a marketing CRM , it also provides robust sales and customer support features. For example, users can collaborate between teams, locations, and entire departments.  Zoho CRM’s journey orchestrator allows sales teams to create totally customizable sales processes within the tool that show real-time insights into customer preferences to build complex sales stages.

If you’re looking for a similar tool to both Zoho CRM and HubSpot that also offers a forever free plan, I suggest ClickUp for their AI tools and robust online resources.

Check out this Zoho CRM review for more info.

• Free CRM: Free for up to three users and comes with lead and document management and a mobile app.
• Standard: $14 per user per month, billed annually, or $20 per user when billed monthly.
• Professional: $23 per user per month, billed annually, or $35 per user when billed monthly.
• Enterprise: $40 per user per month, billed annually, or $50 per user when billed monthly.
• Ultimate: $52 per user per month, billed annually, or $65 per user when billed monthly.
• Zia: Receive information, generate content, have notes, and even predictive analytics from Zoho’s AI assistant, Zia.
• Omnichannel communication: Interact with customers through multiple channels such as email, telephone, social media, SMS, live chat, WhatsApp, webforms, and even a self-service portal.
• Event management: Manage events by sending online invitations or follow-ups, organizing meetings, and even tracking results from within the CRM.

Capsule: Best for streamlined task management

Capsule offers a variety of task management tools that help reps manage their day-to-day workflows. A major benefit of a CRM solution is that it helps sales reps or managers efficiently handle customer relationships, and task management does a lot of that heavy lifting. Some of Capsule’s task management features include task reminder emails, repeating task notifications, automations, and calendar views.

Why I chose Capsule

Capsule is an intuitive CRM that markets itself as a solution best for small businesses because of no onboarding fees and quick system setup. Features include contact and project management, workflow automations, and sales analytics. Capsule also offers integrations through Zapier and Make.

Capsule is an affordable solution for startups or small to mid-sized companies who are after an intuitive online CRM. I recommend Zoho CRM or HubSpot if you want a platform to manage a larger number of users.

Read my Capsule review for more details.

• Free tier: Free for up to 250 contacts and 50MB of storage per account.
• Starter: $18 per user per month when billed annually, or $21 per user when billed monthly.
• Growth: $36 per user per month when billed annually, or $38 per user when billed monthly.
• Advanced: $54 per user per month when billed annually, or $60 per user when billed monthly.
• Ultimate: $72 per user per month when billed annually, or $75 per user when billed monthly.
• AI content assistant: Generate relevant emails for clients with AI that reps can copy, re-edit, and tweak as needed.
• Sales pipeline forecasting: Monitor pipeline health between pipeline forecast by anticipated growth, team, and project owner.
• Task automation: Set a series of tasks that trigger each other for automated follow up.

Copper CRM: Best for integrating with Google Workspace

Copper CRM integrates seamlessly with the entire Google Workspace suite. The modern CRM can sync with your Gmail, Calendar, and Drive so that sales reps can access information without having to jump between tools. Cooper is a Chrome Enterprise Partner and can even help with lead generation by creating new profiles in the CRM based on Gmail activity. This is best for businesses looking for a CRM solution and who already subscribe to Google Workspace tools.

Why I chose Copper CRM

Copper is a CRM solution that focuses on creating a complete view of business relationships, promoting collaboration, and visualizing the entire customer journey for reps. It’s relatively simple to set up for small to mid-sized businesses. It also offers specific solutions for industries like financial services, consulting, real estate, and corporate development.

While Copper’s Starter and Basic tiers are affordable compared to industry standards, it doesn’t have a free plan. If access to a free tier, as well as more advanced AI functionality, are priorities for you, I recommend HubSpot over Copper.

• Starter: $9 per seat, per month when billed annually. $12 per seat, per month when billed monthly.
• Basic: $23 per seat, per month when billed annually. $29 per seat, per month when billed monthly.
• Professional: $59 per seat, per month when billed annually. $69 per seat, per month when billed monthly.
• Business: $99 per seat, per month when billed annually. $134 per seat, per month when billed monthly.
• Sales pipelines: Track and sort deals by their value amounts and monitor win probabilities with the customizable drag-and-drop sales pipeline builder.
• Mobile app: Access all customer data and activity while on the go by logging calls, sending messages, and updating team members.
• Email sequences: Build automated nurture email sequences to follow up with leads based on their account status or website engagement through the Gmail integration.

Do you need an alternative to HubSpot?

Some HubSpot drawbacks pointed out by real users include how expensive the premium plans can be, limited live customer support and customization options, and overall ease of use.

I recommend getting a better understanding of how CRM pricing works and knowing what your allocated budget is, as well as what your industry standards are for use of a CRM tool. Next, follow our guide to choosing a CRM to ensure the implementation process and ongoing support sets up your business for real long-term success.

If you want a deeper understanding of HubSpot’s offerings, check out our independent HubSpot review .

Methodology

When reviewing general CRM providers in comparison to HubSpot, I used an in-house rubric with outlined criteria of CRM industry standards. After each provider is processed through this rubric, an algorithm calculates an overall rating, and I use that to identify an ideal use case for each software.

Here’s the exact breakdown of the criteria I followed:

• Cost: Weighted 25% of the total score.
• Core features: Weighted 25% of the total score.
• Customizations: Weighted 15% of the total score.
• Integrations: Weighted 15% of the total score.
• Ease of use: Weighted 10% of the total score.
• Customer support: Weighted 10% of the total score.
• Feature Comparison: CRM Software and Services
• Best CRM Software for 2024
• What Is CRM (Customer Relationship Management)?
• Top 10 CRM Features and Functionalities
• 4 Types of CRM Software and How to Choose

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Shared meals, family values lead to MCKK twins winning gold in world’s oldest school essay competition

Monday, 07 Oct 2024

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KUALA LUMPUR: Anas Rayyan Muhammad Shaifuddin and Amir Rayyan Muhammad Shaifuddin, Form 2 twin brothers at the Malay College Kuala Kangsar (MCKK), have clinched the Gold Award in the prestigious 2024 Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition.

Their remarkable achievement came despite a tight timeline, as they crafted their award-winning essays during a brief visit to London to meet their elder sister, Sofea Arisya Muhammad Shaifuddin.

Sofea, a third-year student at the Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvania, was participating in a study programme at King’s College London at the time.

The twins expressed their excitement and gratitude for the recognition, sharing how they poured their hearts into the essays.

"Winning this award motivates us to keep exploring new ways of expressing ourselves through writing,” they said in a joint statement to Bernama.

The twins have previously participated in other essay contests, but this marks their first entry into the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition.

Their essays, which explored ties between family values, unity, and cultural heritage, stood out among thousands of entries.

The essay by Anas, A Culinary Journey with Tok and Me, offered readers an intimate glimpse into his experiences learning traditional Malaysian cooking from his grandmother.

"Good ‘kuih-making’," according to his grandmother, "is about adding love and care into every step."

Anas said it taught him the importance of patience, creativity, and the value of bringing communities together through food.

Meanwhile, Amir's essay, A Malaysian Tale of Family and Unity, highlighted the significance of family gatherings during festive occasions like Eid.

He painted a vivid picture of the laughter, shared meals, and traditions that strengthen family bonds, emphasising that these values are essential in fostering unity within the Commonwealth.

"For me, these traditions are a symbol of strength and unity, ideas that I believe can resonate across the Commonwealth,” Amir said.

The competition's themes this year looked at family values, hospitality, cooperation, respect, and dignity - concepts which the twins naturally incorporated into their essays.

Anas and Amir credited their English teachers for their guidance and encouragement throughout their journey as young writers.

They also hoped that their stories would inspire others to explore the power of storytelling and help keep alive values like compassion and respect in today's rapidly evolving world. - BERNAMA

Tags / Keywords: Twin brothers , MCKK , essay competition , Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition.

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Google ordered to open up app store in Epic Games antitrust ruling

• A judge has ordered Google to open up Android to rival third-party app stores.
• The ruling is part of Epic Games' blockbuster antitrust case against Google.
• Google said it plans to appeal the ruling and ask the courts to pause implementing remedies.

A US judge has ruled that Google must open up Andriod for third-party app stores.

The ruling, made on Monday, was one of several remedies in the landmark antitrust case brought against Google by Epic Games, the company behind the video game Fortnite.

The remedies aim to give Android users more options for downloading apps and paying for transactions within them.

The judge ruled that for three years, Google will not be able to pay companies to launch apps exclusively on the Play Store or pay them to preinstall the company's app store on devices.

The judge also ruled that Google must allow competition app stores to access Google Play apps and that it cannot require app makers to use Google Play Billing.

The remedies are set to take force from November.

Shares of Google's parent company, Alphabet, fell 2.4% following the ruling.

In a statement posted online, Google said it was appealing the decision.

"The Epic verdict missed the obvious: Apple and Android clearly compete. We will appeal and ask the courts to pause implementing the remedies to maintain a consistent and safe experience for users and developers as the legal process moves forward," the company said.

"We will keep advocating for what is best for developers, device manufacturers, and the billions of Android users around the world."

Related stories

The remedies follow a jury's finding last year that Google had violated antitrust policies in its Play Store for Android systems. The jury found that the tech giant held a monopoly in its Play Store for Android operating systems that limited the reach of competitors' apps and drove up prices for processing in-app purchases.

A spokesperson for Epic Games referred Business Insider to an X post made by the company's CEO, Tim Sweeney.

"The Epic Games Store and other app stores are coming to the Google Play Store in 2025 in the USA — without Google's scare screens and Google's 30% app tax — thanks to victory in Epic v Google," Sweeney said in the post.

Another antitrust blow for Google

The Epic Games ruling is Google's latest setback as it faces other antitrust cases affecting different parts of its sprawling business.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google violated antitrust laws to keep a monopoly on search. Google projected it could lose $30 billion if it lost its default spot on Apple devices. A judge is expected to outline potential remedies for that case this week.

Separately, the Department of Justice is suing Google for its dominance in digital advertising. The ongoing trial could result in the internet giant's breakup .

Last month, Europe's top court upheld a €2.4 billion ($2.67 billion) antitrust fine against Google after ruling in 2017 that it used its search-engine dominance to favor its own comparison shopping service over competitors.

Watch: Apple's antitrust lawsuit is just one of its major battles

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Federal judge orders Google to open its Android app store to competition

FILE - A sign is shown on a Google building at their campus in Mountain View, Calif., on Sept. 24, 2019. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

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SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge on Monday ordered Google to tear down the digital walls shielding its Android app store from competition as punishment for maintaining an illegal monopoly that helped expand the company’s internet empire.

The injunction issued by U.S. District Judge James Donato will require Google to make several changes that the Mountain View, California, company had been resisting. Those include a provision that will require its Play Store for Android apps to distribute rival third-party app stores so consumers can download them to their phones, if they so desire.

The judge’s order will also make the millions of Android apps in the Play Store library accessible to rivals, allowing them to offer up a competitive selection.

Donato is giving Google until November to make the revisions dictated in his order. The company had insisted it would take 12 to 16 months to design the safeguards needed to reduce the chances of potentially malicious software making its way into rival Android app stores and infecting millions of Samsung phones and other mobile devices running on its free Android software.

The court-mandated overhaul is meant to prevent Google from walling off competition in the Android app market as part of an effort to protect a commission system that has been a boon for one of the world’s most prosperous companies and helped elevate the market value of its corporate parent Alphabet Inc. to $2 trillion.

Google said in a blog post that it will ask the court to pause the pending changes, and will appeal the court’s decision.

Donato also ruled that, for a period of three years ending Nov. 1, 2027, Google won’t be able to share revenue from its Play Store with anyone who distributes Android apps or is considering launching an Android app distribution platform or store. It also won’t be allowed to pay developers, or share revenue, so that they will launch an app in the Google Play Store first or exclusively, and can’t make deals with manufacturers to preinstall the Google Play store on any specific location on an Android device. It also won’t be able to require apps to use its billing system or tell customers that they can download apps elsewhere and potentially for cheaper.

The Play Store has been earning billions of dollars annually for years, primarily through 15% to 30% commissions that Google has been imposing on digital transactions completed within Android apps. It’s a similar fee structure to the one that Apple deploys in its iPhone app store — a structure that prompted video game maker Epic Games to file antitrust lawsuits four years ago in an effort to foster competition that could help drive down prices for both app makers and consumers.

A federal judge mostly sided with Apple in a September 2021 decision that was upheld by an appeals court. Still, a jury favored Epic Games after the completion of a four-week trial completed last year and delivered a verdict that tarred the Play Store as an illegal monopoly.

That prompted another round of hearings this year to help Donato determine what steps should be taken to restore fair competition. Google argued that Epic Games was seeking some extreme changes, saddling the company with costs that could run as high as $600 billion. Epic contended Google could level the playing field for as little as $1 million. It’s unclear how much the changes ordered by Donato will cost Google.

Although Epic lost its antitrust case against Apple, Donato’s ruling could still have ripple effects on the iPhone app store as another federal judge weighs whether Apple is making it easy enough to promote different ways that consumers can pay for digital transactions. Apple was ordered to allow in-app links to alternative payment systems as part of U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ decision in that case, but Epic contends the provision is being undermined with the creation of another commission system that stifles consumer choice.

The forthcoming Play Store shakeup could be just the first unwelcome shock that antitrust law delivers to Google. In the biggest antitrust case brought by the U.S. Justice Department in a quarter century, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in August declared Google’s dominant search engine to be an illegal monopoly , too, and is now getting ready to start hearings on how to punish Google for that bad behavior. Google is appealing Mehta’s ruling in the search engine case in hopes of warding off a penalty that could hurt its business even more than the changes being ordered in the Play Store.

“Provided the ruling survives the appeals process, Google will almost certainly take a revenue hit,” said Emarketer analyst Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf. “No doubt some of the largest app developers like Epic Games will start encroaching on Google Play Store’s market share, meaning Google will lose out on its usual cut of subscription and in-app purchases.”

The analyst added that, while the Google Play Store will likely continue to benefit from brand recognition since it was the default Android app store for so long, “some consumers may defect if they can get better deals on their favorite apps elsewhere.” And app developers will likely take advantage of the opportunity to let consumers know about direct downloads.

“So Google may see fewer Play Store revenues even among the Android users that stick to the default,” Mitchell-Wolf said.

Alphabet’s shares fell $4.08, or 2.4%, to close Monday at $162.98.