Competitor Analysis- Your Business Can’t Live Without It
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010It would be a great idea to consider starting a business in Australia. As seasoned entrepreneurs point out, this is the best way to go if you want to achieve genuine financial freedom. Australia is a particularly good place to build a profitable business because of its stable social and political environment that keeps businesses secure. Before you dive in though, it is important to first go into complete competitor analysis.
Take note that this isn’t something you can dive into immediately after you decide to open a business. You can proceed with it only if you are done with the first step which is the identification of the most fitting business venture for you. You can get things started by looking into yourself and finding out what you can do well. You might want to ask people around your circle to help you out on this one. Other than determining your skills, you also need to determine your passion. Right in the middle of your skills and preference is the perfect business venture.
You can move on to competition analysis only if you are fairly sure that you are in the right business niche. Analyzing the competition however can prove a bit of a challenge especially for folks who have a poor understanding of it. It is not just a matter of listing the names of competing companies and finding out if they are easy enough to get ahead of. This in itself is already quite a heavy task but real competition evaluation is even more complex.
The first step in analyzing is to find out if there is a strong need for the product that you would want to sell. If there is a strong demand for it, you will automatically get a glimpse of who else is out there selling. Common sense should tell you that a solid demand is necessary for you to prosper but if competitors analysis reveals that there are already a lot of players in the field, you might not be able to make headway at all. The good news about Australia is that most businesses are small scale so you can most likely expect healthy competition that isn’t too stiff.
The second step is to find out if your venture is likely to grow. This involves looking a bit into the future. Ask yourself who your target market will be and if your product is only good as a one time purchase. If the market is limited and paying customers only need to buy once, then you’d have a hard time staying longer in business.
The final step in assessing competition is looking into ethical concerns. You can earn thousands of dollars a month but in some cases, this can only be made possible by paying cheap labor in third world countries. The competition might already be doing this. Since this is hardly acceptable from a moral standpoint, you need to foresee if your business can survive against the competition if you choose to follow better business practices.
You won’t make a mistake choosing Australia as a base for business. You can only make waves though if you make sure that you act according to the results of a thorough competitor analysis.