First, the framework of competitor analysis.
Faced with a large number of financial data, market information and other information, how to sort out and screen these information and how to analyze competitors is an important topic for enterprise intelligence workers.
The author thinks it is very important to establish a framework for competitor analysis. Classify the messy information according to the established framework, avoid the blindness of intelligence work, and collect the information of competitors with a clear aim. There are three frameworks for competitor analysis.
1. Competitor analysis framework based on balanced scorecard
The balanced scorecard examines the performance of enterprises from four aspects: learning and innovation, internal business processes, customers and markets, and finance. Since the balanced scorecard can be used to examine the performance of enterprises, it can also be used to analyze competitors.
The following table is an example of analyzing competitors with balanced scorecard.
It only gives a framework for competitor analysis, and does not list all the analysis indicators. Enterprises can choose indicators according to the key success factors of their own industries, and then analyze their competitors. The choice of index weight also needs to be mastered by enterprises themselves.
In the above framework, some information can be publicly obtained, such as market information and financial information, while some information is difficult to obtain, such as information on internal business processes of enterprises. The best way to analyze internal business processes is to use benchmarking. Benchmarking, also known as benchmarking or reference management. This management method was initiated by Xerox in the late 1970s, and then systematized and standardized by American Productivity and Quality Center. According to a study of America 1997, nearly 90% of the world's top 500 enterprises in 1996 have applied benchmarking in their daily management, including AT & amp； T, Kodak, Ford, IBM, Xerox, etc. The basic idea of benchmarking is to set the goal of learning and catching up with the performance and practical measures of the most competitive enterprises or those leading and most prestigious enterprises in the industry in terms of products, services or processes. Through a series of standardized procedures such as data collection, comparative analysis, follow-up, redesign and implementation, the actual situation of this enterprise is quantitatively compared and evaluated with these benchmarks, and on this basis, the best strategy to improve the performance of this enterprise is selected, so as to catch up with or surpass competitors. In order to further enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises, China Offshore Oil Corporation chose Statoil as a benchmark to conduct benchmarking management. This is the first time that China enterprises have chosen large foreign companies for all-round benchmarking. Statoil was founded in 1972, ranking 14 among the world oil companies, and CNOOC ranked around 50. Statoil has many similarities with CNOOC in its development history, but CNOOC is far from it and comparable to some extent. This is one of the reasons why CNOOC chose Statoil as the benchmark. Through benchmarking, CNOOC's management level and core competitiveness have been greatly improved. Benchmarking management provides a good way and method for enterprises to analyze the internal business processes of competitors and find out the gap with competitors.
2. Porter's competitor analysis model
Porter's book Competitive Strategy puts forward a competitor analysis model, which analyzes competitors' behaviors and reaction modes from four aspects: current strategy, future goals, competitive strength and self-assumption. Through the analysis of future goals, we can see what drives our competitors forward. In the common target system of enterprises, the target of analyzing competitors is mostly financial target. Here, we should not only understand its financial goals, but also understand its other goals, such as social responsibility, environmental protection and technological leadership. At the same time, the goal is hierarchical. It is necessary to understand the objectives of the head office, as well as the objectives of various institutions and even the corresponding objectives of various functional departments.
The analysis of the current strategy shows what competitors are doing at present and what they can do in the future. List the strategies adopted by competitors, and carefully analyze them, so that enterprises can make effective and timely responses.
Competitive strength analysis can find out the gap between enterprises and competitors, find out the advantages and disadvantages of enterprises in market competition, and thus better improve their own work.
By analyzing competitors' assumptions about themselves and the industry, we can clearly see competitors' strategic positioning of themselves and their predictions about the future development prospects of the industry. Some of competitors' assumptions about themselves and the industry are correct and some are incorrect. By mastering these assumptions, we can find opportunities for development, thus making our enterprises in a favorable position in the competition.
3. Competitiveness monitoring system developed by China Business News.
The enterprise competitiveness monitoring system developed by China Business News also provides a relatively perfect analytical framework for competitor analysis. In the enterprise competitiveness monitoring system, two sets of index systems are set up, one is analytical index system, and the other is demonstrative index system. Explicit index system is the performance of enterprise competitiveness, and analytical index system is the reason of enterprise competitiveness. Enterprises can establish an index system for analyzing competitors according to their own industry characteristics and referring to the competitiveness monitoring system. The discussion on the index system of competitiveness monitoring is discussed in detail in China Business News and China Enterprise Competitiveness Report-Essence and Source of Competitiveness edited by Mr. Jin Bei, so I won't repeat it here.
Second, the main content of competitor analysis
The above introduction is the framework of competitor analysis, which provides a way of thinking for enterprises. The following are the main methods of competitor analysis.
1. Market share analysis of competitors
Market share is usually expressed by the ratio of the sales volume of an enterprise to the total market capacity.
The purpose of analyzing competitors' market share is to clarify the position of competitors and our company in the market.
To analyze market share, we should not only analyze the overall market share of competitors and enterprises in the industry, but also analyze the market share of competitors in market segments.
The purpose of analyzing the overall market share is to clarify the position of this enterprise in the enterprise relative to its competitors. Market leader, follower or market participant.
Analyzing the market share of market segments is to make clear which market region or product is competitive and which region or product is at a disadvantage in market competition, so as to provide basis for enterprises to formulate specific competitive strategies.
2. Analysis of competitors' financial situation
The financial analysis of competitors mainly includes profitability analysis, growth analysis, debt analysis, cost analysis and so on.
Profitability analysis of competitors. Profitability is usually measured by profit margin. Compare the profit rate indicators of competitors and the enterprise, and compare them with the average profit rate of the industry to judge where the profit level of the enterprise is. At the same time, we should analyze the composition of profit rate. Mainly analyzes the main business cost rate, operating expense rate, management fee rate and financial expense rate. See which index is better than competitors and which index is higher than competitors. So as to take corresponding measures to improve the profitability of this enterprise.
For example, the operating expense ratio of this enterprise is much higher than that of its competitors. Here, it is necessary to make a detailed analysis of the specific reasons for the high operating expense ratio. Operating expenses include: sales staff salary, logistics expenses, advertising expenses, promotion expenses and other (travel expenses, office expenses, etc.). ). Through the analysis of these specific projects, find out the gap. And take corresponding measures to reduce operating costs.
Analysis on the growth of competitors. The main analysis indicators are production and marketing growth rate and profit growth rate. At the same time, the growth rate of production and sales volume and profit growth rate are compared and analyzed to see the relationship between them. Is the profit growth faster than the production and sales growth, or is the production and sales growth faster than the profit growth? Generally speaking, the profit growth rate is faster than the production and sales growth rate, which shows that the enterprise has good growth. However, under the current market conditions, most of the increase in production and sales of enterprises does not come from natural growth, but is mainly achieved through mergers and acquisitions. Therefore, it often happens that the growth rate of production and sales is much higher than the growth rate of profits. Therefore, when analyzing the growth of enterprises, it is necessary to make specific analysis to exclude the influence of M&A factors.
Other financial situation analysis, such as asset-liability ratio analysis, cost analysis, etc., are mentioned in many financial management books, so I won't repeat them here.
3. Analysis of competitors' capacity utilization rate
Capacity utilization rate is a very important index, especially for manufacturing enterprises, which is directly related to the level of production costs. Capacity utilization refers to the degree to which an enterprise exerts its production capacity. Obviously, if the enterprise's capacity utilization rate is high, the fixed cost per unit product will be relatively low. Therefore, it is necessary to analyze the capacity utilization rate of competitors.
The purpose of the analysis is to find out the gap in capacity utilization rate with competitors and analyze the reasons for this gap, so as to improve the business process of this enterprise, improve the capacity utilization rate of this enterprise and reduce the production cost of this enterprise.
4. Analysis of competitors' innovation ability
At present, the market environment in which enterprises live is a super-competitive environment. The so-called super-competitive environment means that the living environment of enterprises is constantly changing. In such a market environment, it is hard to say what the core competitiveness of enterprises is. Only by continuous learning and innovation can enterprises adapt to the ever-changing market environment. Therefore, learning and innovation have become the main core competitiveness of enterprises.
The analysis of competitors' learning and innovation can be carried out from the following indicators:
1) The speed of launching new products is an important index to test the scientific research ability of enterprises.
2) The percentage of scientific research funds in sales revenue reflects the importance enterprises attach to technological innovation.
3) Innovation of sales channels. Mainly depends on the degree of integration of sales channels by competitors. Sales channel is the main channel for enterprises to obtain profits. Only by strengthening the management and innovation of sales channels and better controlling sales channels can enterprises gain more profits in the whole value chain (including suppliers and distributors).
4) Management innovation. In China, the management level of enterprises has been at a low level. With China's entry into WTO, foreign capital is more involved in domestic market competition. In such a fierce market competition environment, only by constantly improving their own management level and carrying out management innovation can enterprises not be eliminated by fierce market competition.
Through the analysis of competitors' learning and innovation ability, find out the gap between their learning and innovation, and improve their learning and innovation ability. Only through continuous learning and innovation can we construct the differentiation strategy of enterprises, improve the competitive level of enterprises and obtain excess profits higher than the average profit of the industry.
5. Analyze the leaders of competitors.
The style of leaders often determines the corporate culture and values of an enterprise, which is one of the key factors for the success of an enterprise. A leader who dares to take risks and innovate will carry out drastic reforms on the enterprise and will constantly seek new growth opportunities for the enterprise; Steady leaders will pay attention to the connotation growth of enterprises and tap the inherent potential of enterprises. Therefore, studying the leaders of competitors is of great help to grasp the strategic trends and work priorities of enterprises.
The analysis of competitor leaders includes: name, age, gender, education background, main experience, training experience, past performance, etc. Through the analysis of these aspects, we can fully understand the personal quality of the competitor leader and analyze what changes and opportunities his quality will bring to his enterprise. Of course, it also includes the changes of the main leaders of competitors, and analyzes the influence of leadership changes on the development of enterprises.
Third, enterprises should pay attention to the analysis of competitors.
Enterprises should do a good job in competitor analysis and provide sufficient basis for enterprises to formulate strategies. In addition to mastering some commonly used analytical methods, we should also pay attention to the following aspects:
1. Establish a competitive intelligence system and collect basic data.
To analyze competitors, there must be a guarantee basis, which is the system of competitive intelligence and the basic database of competitors.
Competitive intelligence system includes organizational guarantee, staffing, corresponding system software support and competitive intelligence. Only by establishing a competitive intelligence system can the monitoring and analysis of competitors become a daily work, and it is possible to grasp the dynamics of competitors in time and provide timely information for enterprise decision-making.
At the same time, the construction of competitors' basic database is very important. The decision-making of modern enterprises emphasizes scientificity and accuracy, and emphasizes decision-making based on facts and data. Only by establishing a perfect competitor database, the analysis of competitors will not become castles in the air and will be implemented.
2. Establish a competitor analysis model that conforms to the characteristics of the industry.
Different industries have different characteristics. For example, some industries pay attention to return on investment, while others pay more attention to market share. At the same time, the focus of attention will be different at different stages of the industry. Therefore, it is necessary for enterprises to establish a competitor analysis model that conforms to their own industry characteristics. Never copy.
3. Strengthen the pertinence of competitor analysis
Analyze competitors, and each item should be targeted. When analyzing competitors, some enterprises often list all the competitors' information they can master, and then there is no more. So it is necessary to clarify the purpose of analyzing competitors here. According to the viewpoint of strategic management, the analysis of competitors is to find out the advantages and disadvantages of this enterprise relative to competitors, as well as the opportunities and threats brought by competitors to this enterprise, so as to provide basis for enterprises to formulate strategies. Therefore, there should be a screening process for competitors' information, and we should be good at eliminating useless information to avoid blindness and inefficiency in our work.