Indicators to know Competition is Catching Up

Blockbuster video was synonymous with video renting in US. They had reach that was unmatched. There were opportunities – at one point sometime in year 2000 Blockbuster could have bought Netflix for 50 million!  But alas this opportunity came back, Netflix had not only overtaken them but redefined the rules of video. Now Blockbuster is remembered only as a lesson in what happens when you do not adapt to change. 

Closer to home we can find the precious once-upon-a-time HMT watches eaten up by competition of new age companies that cater to changing style and consumer taste, so is the case with Dukes ‘Lemonade’,’Mangola’ or ‘Energee’ from ‘Aarey’ . It is worth noting that the demand and market for watches, cold drinks have grown multi-fold, sadly the companies that did not pay attention to changes in customer preferences are shut or on the verge of closedown. 

Are you concerned that your business could go away at some point of time?

If you are, there are some early signs that one should be aware of. Easiest one to track is market share. Here are ways in which market share can be tracked without getting into significant market research.

If you track buying behaviour of your customers and how they use your product, then tracking purchases of those customers for past few years can give you a good idea. If course, this is true only in cases where your customer is an OEM and you are in B2B market.

Let us illustrate this with an example. Let us say you make a component that goes into making a product used by end customers. The company you are selling to, buys same amount of material from you every quarter. That either means that your customer is not growing, or they are growing and selling more but –

• They buy the product from somewhere else
• They have found another alternate product

If the customer is a publicly listed company, it is easy to know by reading their publicly disclosed information. It becomes difficult if the customer is a privately held organization. This is where your sales network can help know ground situation by conducting some basic survey.

If you caught this situation early, there may be some steps the business can take to avoid this risk. The steps to be taken depend on the type of business, industry etc.

I have heard many business owners talk about not being interested in past data but the moment one puts this information on the table, they will suddenly develop interest in past data.

“A stich in time can save nine” holds true if one starts a very discipline approach to Customer Analytics.

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