The FT Essential Guide to Writing a Business Plan, 3rd Edition

APPENDIX A

DERIVING COMPETITIVE POSITION

‘All that is human must retrograde if it does not advance.’

Edward Gibbon

In this appendix:

• ■Identifying customer purchasing criteria
• ■Appraising key success factors
• ■Rating performance for competitive position

This appendix sets out a systematic way of deriving competitive position, as opposed to the shortcut listing of your firm’s strengths and weaknesses, discussed above in Chapter 5.

You will go through three stages, for each of your firm’s main business segments:

1. 1Identify and weight customer purchasing criteria – what customers need from their suppliers.
2. 2Appraise and weight key success factors – what you and your competitors need to do to satisfy these customer purchasing criteria and run a ...