Who are you competing with?

Look inside the business to find your biggest competitor.

Competitors? Some are direct - offering the same product or service as you. Some are indirect offering a substitutable product or service. There may be many in a crowded marketplace or there may be few in consolidated, protected or mature markets. Either way most organisations measure their success by the events of euphoria on the occasion of growth at the expense of a competitor, or conversely, despair of customers prefering a rival. The ever-present fear of a rival developing something better than whatever you offer is familiar to the leaders of most businesses.

Paying attention to your competition is a necessary pastime. It informs of new products or services. It helps benchmark what we do. It might even inform our pricing strategy. Listening to what they say - closely listening - gives clues to the way they think, the way they talk to customers, or what they are going to do next. All vital information in your quest to build a picture of what is happening in the competitive world outside your box. We should always understand this and therefore keep our competitive "radar" switched on.

On one hand, focussing exclusively on the competition might lead to a role of second-to-the-market or follower. Albeit, many businesses thrive on their ability to quickly react to the innovation of those around them. Reactivity is a core skill of a business. But is a focus on competitors the prime objective of a business? Probably not.

There are many great examples of companies losing their way . Not because they did not look at the competitive environment - but because primarily they themselves failed to adapt or innovate or improve. Kodak's film business was decimated by digital photography that needed no film at all; Blockbusters video rental business was killed by streaming that required no physical retail presence; RIM's blackberry business was stopped in its tracks by the Apple iphone which ditched the keyboard that anchored the Blackberry product for too long.Likewise, Nokia's mobile handset market share was systematically dismantled by smart phones. These businesses suffered because they did not innovate. Nor did they react quickly to paradigm shifts in their markets. Their biggest competitor was actually their own internal behaviours and culture i.e. themselves.

By all means monitor your competitive surroundings - but recognise that this is, by its very nature, an exercise in looking in the "rear-view-mirror". Look outward, and importantly, forward to discover market developments, trends, technology shifts, changing customer needs or preferences. Using this forward thinking mentality can provide the springboard for innovation and continual improvement. And sure, even pick up a few smarts from the competition here and there. Your success will not be driven by your competition. It will be predicated on your own products or services, their quality, your efficiency, staying insanely close to your customers, giving them value, and satisfaction. Your strategic agility.

Success in most businesses will be driven by how you can constantly improve your performance in all of these areas over time. In other words you are COMPETING MAINLY WITH YOURSELF.

If you can strive to be better than yesterday, and again be better tomorrow with a clear bias to innovation, then you will succeed.

So who are you competing with?