“Keep your Friends Close but your Enemies Closer”- Sun Tzu
In a cut-throat market, businesses must be aware of their competitors and be prepared to adapt their strategies accordingly. While plagiarism is unacceptable, it is perfectly acceptable to be inspired by competitors and adopt their best practices, with your own unique twist.
Competitor analysis is the process of learning about your competitors' strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. It's an essential part of any business strategy because it helps you make informed decisions about your own products, services, marketing, and pricing.
Companies hire firms to perform competitive analysis for them and spend a good fortune. But did you know that if you are a Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM user, you could do it seamlessly with ? Yup! It is true. Let’s explore!
Plotting of records-
Hotel chains must carefully consider the location of their new hotels. Hotels should be convenient to airports, train stations, and city centers. They should also be close to healthcare services, marketplaces, and other amenities. One way to identify good locations is to look at where competitor hotels are located. You can of competitor hotels and compare their popularity and revenue. You can also interview the target audience to get their feedback and preferences. This information can help you shortlist potential locations for new hotels.
Mapping of Land Area-
A popular fabric manufacturer abandoned his plan to build a new factory at a particular location after reading that a competitor had left the same location due to flooding. Using , he discovered that the location was in the floodplain of a large river that swelled during the monsoon season. It's better to be safe than sorry!
Supplier Analysis-
Cosmetics businesses planning to set up a production lab can research their competitors' suppliers to learn where they source their ingredients and chemicals. Some medium-scale cosmetics brands even share production labs with their competitors. Businesses can plot nearby labs from their storefronts or offices, check reviews, and find the most convenient ones to partner with. They can also map to these new suppliers and labs to acquire raw materials and products efficiently.
Offering comfortable travel-
As the owner of a coastal resort, I can identify popular tourist attractions near my competitors' resorts. Then, using , I can discover more nearby attractions and assess their significance in person. This information can help me design more comprehensive and engaging theme-based travel itineraries for my guests than my competitors. I can also plot optimized travel routes with turn-by-turn navigation and better support my guests' travel plans. Additionally, I can use to track my guests' whereabouts, providing an added safety measure and a competitive advantage over my competitors.
Exploring new Areas-
Grocery store owners looking to expand their business should study new residential development sites to identify potential locations for chain stores. This would give them a competitive advantage and the benefit of being first-to-market. Maplytics can be used to visualize these sites on maps along with their surrounding areas.
Self Analysis-
Maplytics' can also be used to analyze sales performance across different business locations. This information can be used to identify and improve high-performing areas, remodel underperforming areas, and identify and address threats to sales and leads. As a result, Maplytics can be used to conduct a comprehensive SWOT analysis.
There are many ways to analyze competitors from across industries, but it depends on how creatively you use the data.
What’s More?
The unique features of Maplytics could be experienced when explored more with a trial. One can write to the Team at crm@inogic.com for mapping requirements, a , or a personalized demo within Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM / Dataverse.
To learn more about Maplytics, its applications across industries, and another multitude of features, do visit the or . For further details, one can hop on to the , , , , and for a quick query resolution.
Until then,
Happy Competing!
