Definitive Business Plan, Second Edition, The

The industry – what you are up against

Having considered your product, customers and target market, the next step is to take a look at the industry in which you operate. This is the sum total of all sellers of the products – in other words, it is your competitors.

You don't buy a Rolex to tell the time The Chairman of Rolex, when asked about the state of the watch business replied that he had no idea. He defined correctly that he was not a watchmaker, he was in the luxury business. A classic example of getting it wrong is US railroad operators. In the mid-1900s they thought that they were in the railway business. They failed to notice that they ...