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Ten Greatest Ideas for Planning Your Business • 21
have comparisons of products and reviews of things that are new. If it is sufficiently
important, you can buy reports of competitive comparisons from market analysts.
Your customers and prospects can also be a source of competitive knowledge as can
people who join your organisation from a competitor. Now relate this information
to your customer by making a chart of your competitors' ability to meet the decision
criteria of your customers, using the customer value matrix. You should note where
they are nearer to the customer's ideal than you are.
Most organisations see their current competitors as providers of similar prod-
ucts or services. In fact this is not the case. There is often another way of doing
things. If, for example, you intend to run a helicopter service carrying
business people out to remote islands, a current competitor may be an- Think widely
other contractor offering to run the same route. It is possible that future about
competitors may be video-conferencing companies who would render the competitive
journey unnecessary. Think about what your customers require and what possibilities,
other ways they could meet their needs apart from using your types of because it is
products and services. Think widely about competitive possibilities, be- certain that
cause it is certain that there are other organisations thinking widely about there are other
their prospects in your chosen markets. organisations
The market does not stand still - nor do your competitors. What a thinking widely
customer found interesting and satisfying for even a long time in the past about their
will not last for ever. Whole organisations have in the past been caught prospects in
out because a product feature introduced by a competitor has become your chosen
desirable and even fashionable. You have to be ready for such a change, markets.
or to react quickly if you did not anticipate the event. You should try to be
in the position of the person who first brought out the new feature.
Look, in the end you are going to have to explain to customers and prospects
why they should prefer your offering to other people's. So work it out now, and keep
working at it until you have convinced yourself.
