How to stay ahead of competition

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Writuparna Kakati | 02 Jul, 2009
How can a business position itself as a market leader? A business satisfies its customers, earns their satisfaction and loyalty, gradually achieve the maximum share of its target market, and finally the day may come when it will reach the top.

The process of market capturing is not easy. Your competitors will not sit back to see that you are capturing the market. They will think of various strategies, make counter moves to beat you. And even if you become the Rank 1 one day, the game will never stop.

A business, to keep itself ahead of competition, needs to develop its marketing strategies smartly. Find below some activities in businesses should focus upon to beat its competitors:

Competitive pricing: To beat your competitors, or at least to compete with them, it is important to keep the prices of your products or services reasonable. At the same time, it should be kept in mind that overemphasizing his strategy may lead to a price war.

Promotional strategies: To keep your business ahead of others, it is important to focus on your promotional strategies. Offering free gifts, discounts to your customer time to time often result in enhanced customer satisfaction. However, it is important to keep the promotional expenditure sizeable, especially for small and medium businesses.

Advertising: Advertising helps to create stronger consumer awareness and preference. It is therefore essential for a business to advertise its products and services before its target audience. While doing so, one should choose the advertising media carefully and according to the requirements without making the advertising budget too big.

Quality consciousness: Quality maintenance and continuous quality improvement are very important for a firm to remain competitive. It is why emphasis should be given on research and development activities. While selling your products, the quality standard maintained with the products should be mentioned.

Innovation: Innovation is one of the best ways to stay ahead of competition. To beat its competitors, a business should focus on innovating new products and processes. Business innovation may involve any development of new ways of doing business, such as new management techniques, new application of technology, and also new ways to beat market competition.

After sales service: Reliable and efficient after sales services always leave a lasting impression in the minds of customers. It helps not only to enhance customer loyalty but also to expand the customer base as satisfied customers are most likely to bring in more customers through their contacts.

Distribution network & sales force: A well-established, orderly and widespread distribution network, coupled with a strong sales force, helps a business significantly to increase customer satisfaction. For small businesses, it may not always be possible to establish a huge sales and distribution network spread all over the country or overseas but they should, at least, have a network to serve their regular markets efficiently.

Manufacturing efficiency: It could be a very effective way to beat your competitors. Smart cost control (through low cost raw-material, production technique and equipment, etc.) during the manufacturing process could be a determining factor in keeping the price of finished products competitive.

Credit policy: A firm can try to attract new customers offering its products on customer friendly credit terms such as payment through installments, extended repayment period, etc. However, it is necessary to be careful in this respect and there should be a well planned credit policy to define to whom credit should be offered and how much.

In today's competitive market, each firm in every industry faces stiff competition. To handle it and ensure that these efforts do not go astray, a business must have a well-planned marketing strategy developed on the basis of the activities of its competitors. In the world of business, competition never ends; beating it is the only way to reach the zenith.