Who are my competitors? (Competitive Analysis)

This question focuses on the competitive analysis. The competitive analysis helps you learn from businesses competing for your potential customers. This is key to defining a competitive edge that creates sustainable revenue.^[1]

Needs Assessment

Process to refine the Question:

• What are the elements of competitive analysis? ^[2]
  • Market share
  • Strengths and weaknesses
  • Your window of opportunity to enter the market
  • The importance of your target market to your competitors
  • Any barriers that may hinder you as you enter the market
  • Indirect or secondary competitors who may impact your success

Difficulties often encountered

• It is harder to have differentiating factor in saturated industry as a result there are so many threats to extremely established industry. Therefore, it is harder to think about your competitive advantage in such industry.

Resources and Next Steps:

Catalog / Guide Documents

• Porter's 5 Forces
• Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, Threat Analysis (SWOT Analysis)
• Census Business Builder: Small Business Edition for finding other businesses
• Infobel (Used for finding company around the world)
• Crunchbase (A lot of information about startups and their VC funding)
• SCORE's 9 alternative to SWOT analysis

People and Organizations

Business Support Organizations

• U.S. Small Business Administration|SBA
• Resource:PG County Small Business Development Center (SBDC)
• Resource:Hispanic Business Center
• Resource:PG County Economic Development Corporation
• SCORE Mentor Services