How to Conduct the Best Competitor Analysis in 2023

Why Competitor Analysis?

Competitor analysis is a crucial part of business planning, fundamental for startup strategy. It gives you essential insights about your rivals helping you make informed decisions about product inventory, audience demographics, or your core market strategy. However, obtaining results from a competitor analysis requires careful organization. Neglecting to capture accurate information could cause your business to struggle. Don’t worry though; using a competitor analysis template can help mitigate such risks.

A great analysis provides crucial insights about the changing dynamics of your sector, ensuring your startup remains nimble. It lets you understand who your competitions are and how to get ahead. Let’s explore why these templates are an unstoppable tool for business growth.

Your Legal Foundation

Before we delve deeper, let’s consider your legal foundation. Startups often overlook the legal implications of their activities, and this is a huge risk. If you’re carrying out competitor analysis, you must ensure that all the information you gather is done legally and ethically.

Use of unethical practices might give you some advantages in the short term, but it hurts in the long run. Rumours or negative news about your methods of gathering competitor information can balloon into a PR nightmare, leading to potential legal issues and negative branding.

Many startups don’t prioritise this, but understanding the legal aspects associated with doing business in your sector could potentially save you from expensive legal disputes. We recommend using our AI Legal Assistant over at Genie AI for drafting, reviewing, negotiating and signing your legal agreements. It’s incredibly handy both for making sure that your competitor analysis stays within the bounds of good practice.

Top 5 Competitor Analysis Templates

We’ve handpicked five of the finest competitor analysis templates from brands like Wrike, monday.com, Smartsheet, and more. You’ll notice that most of these templates follow a spreadsheet-style format. Why? Because spreadsheets ease visualizing patterns and trends in your data. This will help you build a competitor profile and track anything from customer behaviour to marketing trends.

1. Start with Wrike

Wrike’s user-centric, simple design offers a smooth and intuitive experience, particularly ideal for teams greater than five employees looking to nurture growth. Wrike’s neat layout makes it easy for multiple users working simultaneously. One of the features we mostly liked about Wrike is the ‘Stream,’ which provides a feed of all the project updates. You can comment under each update highlighting any significant findings. It has a free plan that allows an unlimited number of guests, which can be invited to view or edit it.

2. Perfect your data with monday.com

monday.com’s easily graspable, colour-coded format enables even startups in highly competitive industries to identify their rivals’ strengths and weaknesses speedily. They offer a free trial for new users, after which a monthly £7 fee is applicable for continuing with the services.

3. Interpret data with Smartsheet

Smartsheet, a robust, spreadsheet-based tool, specializes in transforming complicated data into legible graphs. If your competitor analysis involves a lot of analytics like SEO statistics, this will be your go-to choice. Their features are particularly useful for businesses looking for a detailed breakdown of specialist or emerging industries.

4. Dive into customer research with Asana

Asana’s user research template is particularly useful if you’re searching to understand what customers think about rival products and services. This competitor analysis template can gather and process this data, setting a benchmark for your business.

5. Print it out with Confluence

If you prefer to work with word documents than spreadsheets, Confluence’s competitive analysis template could be your perfect match. This PDF template allows going in-depth and writing a detailed profile on each competitor.

How To Write a Competitive Analysis Report

Are you confused about where to start? Don’t worry! We will guide you through the process in five easy-to-perform steps.

First Step: Competitor Identification

Figuring out who your competitors are is the first step towards your competitor analysis. The number of competitors will typically depend on your market, but we recommend no fewer than three to achieve an informed and valuable analysis.

Second Step: Template Download

Using a clear structure enables you to remain focused on your strategy during research. So, once you’ve identified your competitors, you should download a competitor analysis template.

Third Step: Data Collection

Fill your template with the required information about the competitors. This information will typically include product offering, pricing, sales tactics, marketing strategies and channels, management, financials, and partnerships.

Fourth Step: SWOT Analysis

The final step is conducting a SWOT analysis which involves using the collected information to identify each company’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This helps you understand what sets your business apart from the rest of the market and where it falls short of expectations.

Fifth Step: Draft a Competitor Analysis Report

Compile all your findings into an easy-to-read document that you, your team members, and any key stakeholders can easily understand.

Wrapping Up

A well-executed competitior analysis goes a long way in setting you ahead of your competitors. Wrike stands out as the best tool to help you make huge strides in your startup journey, particularly as markets grapple with recessions.

Didn’t we say the templates do wonders for business growth? Try out the free Wrike competitor analysis template today to uncover new market gaps and remain ahead of your rivals.

On the legal front, remember that information you gather needs to adhere to legal and ethical standards. Startups often underestimate the importance of legal considerations in conducting business activities. If this sounds like you, consider signing up to Genie AI’s Legal Assistant. A little focus on the legal aspects today could save you from hefty and time-consuming legal disputes tomorrow. After all, what’s better than growing your business at peace without any legal distresses shadowing you!

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