Is growth by a competitor bad?
There are different operational ways to grow a product line or a business: high volume/low cost, low volume/higher cost, large selection -vsmore
options, etc. Just because someone in your industry is talking to your clients does not mean they’re a direct competitor. In fact, a competitor in your general industry with a different production and marketing approach can be a good thing. How? By enticing clients who are not a best match for you.
What do you know about your competitor?
Do you know they’re growing or does your data come solely from sales staff sporadically reporting that a promised sale was picked up by a competitor? If you’re not actively and regularly tracking your industry, trends, and media you won’t have the long term data available to judge what is a true change versus simply a blip such as a competitor launching a new sales and promotion campaign.
Of potentially more concern than competitor “Growth” is when a competitor starts attacking your business directly on your key marketing points. And you won’t know until you have good long term data.
How do you know?
Percentage of industry sales? Media mentions for new accounts? Website visits? Hiring spree? Sales lost?
Your sales staff is on the front line in your battle for profit and revenue but their data is only part of what you need. Add sales staff reports to records
you maintain on each of your current and likely competitors. From hiring, to media announcements, to traffic to their website, much of this data is publicly available and simply needs to be aggregated for long term records.
Most data collection should be done in-house since your business and market are unique; however, cross checking your data with national services like D&B every 18 months is needed. RadiusBridge® develops and supports custom Data Management systems for executives to know, protect, and grow their business.