Recently, the New England Patriots NFL team played the well-regarded Chicago Bears in a Chicago blizzard. They won handily, outscoring the Bears by 29 points. Both teams had excellent track records going into the late season game. What happened?
Well, a lot happened, as it always does in exciting professional sports, but I believe one of the keys to the Patriots game win was superior competitive analysis. It’s been at the foundation of their continued winning streak, and to consistently win in your business, you’re going to need to pay attention to this area of business as well.
Winning scores on game day reflect a variety of factors: communication clarity between the coaches and quarterbacks, the active roster of players, playing conditions, etc. However, I believe, the scores are more heavily influenced by the pre-game analytical exercises from watching hours and hours of game films to sending scouts into the field for closer looks at competitive talent. What are they looking for? Well, basically the same things you should look at in your competition: strengths and weaknesses and the strategies that evolve from them.
Just as in a card game, where you play your strong and weak cards in a strategic way, to get the most favorable outcome, winning coaches look to capitalize on the weak “cards” of the opposing teams. For example, if the opposing team is weak in dealing with running attacks, the coaches will plan running plays, or if they’re unable to adequately cover pass receivers the coaches will plan a number of pass plays.
Strong business cards, competitively speaking, include: monetary resources, established loyal customer bases, solid supplier relationships, experienced, talented management, widely recognized brands, among others. Business weaknesses include, naturally the reverse of the strengths and other things such as poor customer service, disorganized processes, poor employee motivation, sub-standard technological infrastructures, etc. Once you understand the other business’s “hand”, you can plot your strategy to win.
For example, if you’re opening up a senior move management business and your competitor’s have shunned technology, you might exploit the opening by establishing a web portal where seniors, and their adult children, involved in moves can always check on the status of things via the Internet. Or, if you’re in the interior design field, where the competition has minimal and precarious arrangements with premium kitchen cabinet suppliers, you could strike exclusive distribution contracts with the cream of the crop, effectively boxing out others from the high end market. Another example might be learning about and subsequently capitalizing on temporary “bad press”. A foreign auto manufacturer recently suffered from a tarnished brand image due to shipping cars with faulty brakes. As you can imagine, the other large auto companies exploited that weakness as quickly as possible. The business situation is almost identical to the professional sports. Neither the teams, nor the companies, typically cause the weaknesses of the opposing group; they just effectively leverage them to their advantage.
So, if you want to post a winning record in your business, take competitive analysis seriously. Professional coaches study game films for hours to truly understand the strengths and weaknesses, which drive the strategies and on-field actions, of their future opponents. You should do the same. Invest time and effort in learning of the strengths and weaknesses, and resulting actions of your competitors, and you’ll enjoy success as well.