Understanding Competitive Factors

What are Competitive Factors?

Competitive Factors are the criteria your customers use to choose between your offering and your Competitors' and Competitor Categories'.

These could include things like 'price' and 'quality'.

However, these are generic factors and don't help you to understand and target your strategy very effectively.

So look for factors that are more specific to your industry or business.

Examples of Competitive Factors

For example:

• for Ikea, "Instant Fulfillment" is a competitive factor. Ikea's customers can take the furniture home with them. Competitors make them wait weeks to have their order filled from a central factory or warehouse.
• for Cirque du Soleil, a "Refined Viewing Environment" is a competitive factor. It sets them apart from the traditional big tent environment of the competing circuses.

Competitive factors can also be things you don't want to compete on.

For example:

• "Animal shows" were a big draw for some customers, but Cirque du Soleil chose to forego those to appeal to people who thought animals in circuses were cruel, even though they knew that would lose them some customers.
• "Customisation" is a big draw for upmarket furniture stores, but Ikea chose to forego that, even though they knew that would lose them some customers.

You can see further examples of competitive factors at Examples of Strategy Canvases.

Tips for competitive factors

1. Think about competitive factors from the customers' perspective. What do they want/not want? What words do they use to describe it?
2. Subsegment and niche your customers. What do some customers want, whilst either customers don't want it?
3. Gather evidence. Don't just ask customers what they want. Complement this by looking at what they actually choose and do. You may be able to do this by observing them, or by ABTesting advertisements (like Google Ads) to see which ones do/don't generate responses.

Using Competitive Factors in StratNavApp.com

1. Identify your Competitive Factors
   1. Click "Analysis" on the main menu.
   2. Click "Competition" on the drop-down menu.
   3. Click the "Factors" on the selector at the top of the page which opens.
   4. Click the "+" button to add a Competitive Factor
      OR
      Ask #Stratbot to suggest the Factors of Competition for you.
2. Identify your competitors and competitor categories (or ask #StratBot to suggest them for you)
3. Score each of your competitors/competitor categories against each of your Competitive Factors and add notes explaining your scores.
   
   1. Click on a Competitive Factor (see instructions from point 1 above)
   2. Scroll down to the Competitive Factors on the page which opens.
   3. Slide the slide to the right to indicate that the competitor/category is more competitive (attractive to the customer) or to the left if it is less competitive.
   4. Capture any notes explaining this score in the text entry box immediately below the slider.
4. Create a visual representation of your scores on the Strategy Canvas.