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Knowing your competitors is crucial to understanding your business. But how do you manage this requirement when there's so much to do for your own business? Here are some answers.
Knowing what your competitors are doing will help you stand out from the crowd and stay competitive.In-store competitive analysis will help you monitor your competitors' strategies at your points of sale.
Competitive intelligence enables us to understand current market trends and identify specific customer needs. By defining a strategic positioning based on the data collected, it is possible to adjust prices optimally and improve the product offering.
Observing competitors' practices can also inspire product and marketing innovations. Your competitors have good ideas, just like you. Sometimes there's no need to reinvent the wheel, but be careful not to copy! Your customers are no fools. Latest example: Krokola and Lindt.
I don't think I need to explain, as the image of Teddy Le Maout speaks for itself.
So yes, take inspiration from your competitors and the market, as Krokola did when it launched its spread, but don't copy foolishly. It will be counterproductive.
Here are a few best practices for evaluating the competition:
Choosing which competitors to analyze is a key strategic step in maximizing the effectiveness of your competitive analysis. To begin with, I advise you to select a limited number of competitors (around three) so as not to spread yourself too thin. For example, in the chocolate sector in France, where 115 companies were present in 2024, it would be inefficient to follow them all. The analysis would be a bit time-consuming if you followed them all.
But how do you choose which ones to follow?
Direct competitors are those who offer similar products to yours and target the same customer segment. They often represent the most immediate and direct threat to your business. For example, Yoplait and Siggi's are direct competitors on the Skyr.
Indirect competitors don't sell exactly the same product, but meet similar customer needs. For example, Siggi's and Danone are indirect competitors in white yogurt.
Depending on the size of your market (whether you're in a niche product or not) and consumer trends, following one or two indirect competitors may be worthwhile. For example, although in 2024, the yogurt market in France will be largely dominated by cow's milk-based yogurts, plant-based yogurts, particularly those based on soya milk, are gaining in popularity (+15% market share). If you sell cow's milk-based chocolate yoghurts, it may make sense to follow a competitor who sells vegetable milk-based chocolate yoghurts, especially if they sell both.
It's crucial to keep an eye on new market entrants. Although they may not yet have a large market share, they can represent a potential threat if they offer innovations or more attractive prices. New brands often bring new propositions that have not yet been solved by existing brands. Some succeed in establishing themselves on a long-term basis.
Analyzing competitors of different sizes can offer a variety of perspectives. Larger companies often have more resources for marketing campaigns and innovation, while smaller companies can be more nimble and innovative.
Initially, it's a good idea to keep an eye on those who are most like you. However, having a larger competitor in mind is never a bad thing. It can give you something to aim for.
With the rise of e-commerce, it's essential to keep an eye on your online competitors too. Online sales platforms can capture a significant share of your customer base. What's more, they often have more freedom in their marketing and innovation, and can therefore inspire you.
Battle cards are comparative sheets that help your sales teams evaluate and compare products with those of competitors.
To make them effective, focus on 3 to 5 major competitors. Key information to include is :
HubSpot offers some good examples of battle cards that you can adapt to your sector.
SWOT analysis is a strategic tool that identifies a company's Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. This tool is used to evaluate the internal and external aspects that influence performance and competitiveness.
If we take a well-known yogurt brand as an example, its SWOT analysis might look like this:
In an ideal world, you'd have teams dedicated to competitive intelligence. They would visit stores, list products, retrieve relevant product and brand information, and distribute this data to the whole team.
In reality, this can be inefficient and time-consuming. Information can get lost or arrive too late to be useful. This can discourage your sales force, who may question the wisdom of spending so much time monitoring the competition.
To avoid this, a good competitive analysis should automate the process. Let technology take over for low value-added tasks. Centralize data in a dedicated mobile application and create competitor statements in your own image. This will enable your in-store sales staff to monitor your competitors' activities and strategies, such as their presence, number of SKUs, prices, display types and promotions, with just a few clicks.
Automating these tasks will free up your time for more strategic actions and maximize the effectiveness of your competitive intelligence.
For a competitive analysis to be truly useful, it's essential to compare your competitors in a structured and thorough way. You've collected data, that's good. Now it's time to put it to use.
Before starting the comparison, determine the key criteria on which you will evaluate your competitors. These criteria can include :
Select a few relevant criteria and keep them. Create a statement template for all your sales reps. Whatever the competitor, the statement will be the same and so will the criteria. To start with, use the same tracking criteria for all competitors and brands. Once you've got the process down to a fine art, differentiate your statements by brand if it makes sense for you. Otherwise, there's no need to add to your workload.
Adapting to different strata and stores can also be useful, if you want a more micro-level analysis of your competitors.
Go into paparazzi mode. The photos will speak for themselves.
It's interesting to be able to visually analyze what your competitors are doing, and over time. See how their discourse, packaging and point-of-sale displays have evolved. It also helps you understand their commercial strategies and relationships with your distributors, and their visual impact.
You don't compare your results with those of last year's competitors. This will not lead to any reliable analysis.
Using statements will also enable you to make informed decisions thanks to data collected in real time.
Using a crm to take statements means that data can be updated with each visit: your area managers simply have to modify the existing data entry. They don't have to start from scratch. If mobile applications are well thought-out, you can also carry out your product review at the click of a button.
I'm not going to list them all here, because the analyses you can make also come from the criteria you have in your readings. Nevertheless, here are a few interesting analyses you can make:
It's worth noting that all the data in the statements can be isolated (by brand, by department, by sales rep, etc.) to obtain a more detailed view and implement appropriate sales actions.
Using technology to analyse your competitors is a real asset. The task is both essential and time-consuming... You must therefore put all the chances on your side by automating what takes too much time to do. This way, you can save precious working hours to improve your sales!
If you had to remember only one piece of advice for conducting your competitive intelligence, it would be this. Take care when choosing your applications: you must demand ergonomics and intuitive use that defy all competition, all accessible from anywhere and without a connection!
