Competition in a business is inevitable. Sooner or later another player comes along and changes the game. Depending on your industry, competitor activity can be really frustrating and difficult to keep tabs on. Then again, if your competition is a big player they can easily sink your efforts. Inspite of these, a competitive environment has many cons. Here are a couple of them.
Innovation
A highly competitive environment will drive you to innovate in terms of improving your product offering and/or customer experience in a way that leads to repeat businesses. You might want to analyse your market environment to identify gaps that can serve as a point of differentiation. This helps you position your offer in a way that gives more value to your customers.
Increased market acceptance
If your business doesn’t have any competition, then the market for your product may be too small. When there’s competition, the combined effort of all the players makes the product better known which in turn makes it a mainstream product and increases its popularity amongst potential buyers.
Imitation is the best form of flattery
Find a balance between ignoring your competitors while being obsessively focused on them. This means knowing and understanding what their strategy is and what they’re doing but not necessarily reacting to their every move. That is usually not sustainable.
Remember when competitors imitate you, it’s the best form of flattery. It means you’re doing something right and others find it worthy of emulation.
Credit: Servled
