Your competitors
With whom do you compete? A straightforward question, but not necessarily a straightforward answer.
There can be two areas of complexity in identifying your competitors: variation by segment and indirect competition.
You should expect competition to differ in some of your main business segments. If you recall the analysis of Chapter 2, the ‘product’ part of a product/market segment is itself typically defined by a product, or group of products, having a distinct set of competitors.
Think of Asda and its line-up of competitors. In clothing, Asda takes on the likes of Primark, which sells no food. In DVDs, it used to line up against Woolworths and Zavvi, among others, but they have fallen by the wayside. In food, it competes not ...
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