Knowledge in Action: Competitor Analysis in Practice

Competitor analysis is one of the most cited tools in marketing management and one of the least effectively used in real life. Whether you’re a marketing management student preparing a strategy report or a small business owner trying to make market-driven decisions, you’ve likely asked yourself:


“What am I supposed to do with all this information?”

There are some competitors, and a few are doing great. Now what?
The market leader is using specific channels, some are too expensive, what can we (the business) do?
We have three main competitors in the region, with x% of market share. These are their strengths and weaknesses. So, what can we do? Where to start?
The list goes on.

Too often, competitor research ends in a long list of who’s doing what without any real next steps. So, if you’d like to demystify this tool and generate actionable steps with it, this article might be useful.

This post will focus on turning analysis into action, especially for SMEs and early-stage businesses with limited resources.

Misconceptions About Competition

Before diving into frameworks, let’s clear up a few myths that often lead to poor analysis or misguided decisions:

Generic Competitors vs Strategic Competitors

For any SME, comparison with giants like Microsoft or Unilever won’t help. Their resources, brand equity, and objectives are far beyond an SME. Generic competitors are the ones that serve in the same industry/sector, e.g. considering Bulk or MyProtein as competitors for a local sports nutrition provider.

But the real competitors are closer to your size, objectives, and customer segment, for instance, another local sports nutrition provider. Those are called strategic competitors. Those are the main competitors that we want to analyse.

The market is saturated, so there’s no room for us

Rarely is any company operating at 100% efficiency and performing perfectly in all dimensions. There are always underserved segments, outdated practices, or unmet needs. Michael Porter famously argued that market leaders (Cost Leaders and Differentiators) leave strategic gaps and smaller businesses can focus (cost-focused, Differentiation Focused) their strategy to fill those gaps profitably.

Copy what the winners are doing

Best practices might be expensive or irrelevant for your context. Worse, imitation turns you into a weaker version of an incumbent. Instead, learn from what your competitors aren’t doing well and make that the uniqueness factor.

How to Identify Strategic Competitors

Not all competitors are relevant. Early-stage businesses and SMEs often waste time analysing industry giants whose strategies don’t apply to their realities.

Instead, focus on strategic competitors: businesses similar to yours in size, target market, geography, and resource levels. These are the players you’re most likely to learn from, compete with, and differentiate against.

Use the Strategic Competitor Filter:

Ask yourself:

  • Do they target the same customer segment?

  • Are they operating in the same region or niche?

  • Are their pricing and product positioning comparable?

  • Do they share similar constraints (e.g. limited budget, small team)?

  • Are they competing on similar value propositions?

Example: If your client is launching a regional language school, your strategic competitors are not global apps like Duolingo, but education providers with similar delivery models and market access.

Once you’ve identified 3–5 strategic competitors, you’re ready to extract insights that actually matter to your client.

3 Ways to Turn Analysis into Action

Too often, competitor analysis ends as a passive document. But done right, it becomes a strategic compass. Here are three practical ways to turn insights into action even with limited resources.  Over the course of these steps, you may want to create a list of the actions you can suggest, based on:

  • Priority
  • Cost
  • Ease of Implementation

1. Analyse Industry’s Minimum Standard

Identify what your competitors do, the channels and the language they use. At its essence, we are looking for the minimum industry standard practices.

Example of our experience:

We analysed a small language school that has been working for a few years. By analysing competitors, their websites, searching their names in Google, and keyphrases, we discovered that the main competitors are using education directories as a channel to attract students. We provided a list of potential directories that they can join (even for free!) and suggested that to look for other similar platforms.

2. Use Reverse Benchmarking

Rather than copying what competitors do best, identify what they do poorly or inconsistently. This is where you can differentiate, or as Roy Sutherland put it: “Getting attention by surprise”.

3. Speculate Future Strategies

Competitor analysis isn’t just about what’s happening now; it’s also about anticipating what’s coming next. While we can’t predict every move, we can make strategic assumptions by examining public signals and patterns.

Clues to Look For:

  • Content themes in blog posts or webinars

  • Shifts in messaging or product language

  • Hiring patterns (e.g., new roles in sales or R&D)

  • Partnership announcements

  • Keyword shifts in SEO tools (e.g., rising focus on a new segment)

These insights help you anticipate where the competitor is heading, allowing you to incorporate those into the company’s strategy.

Example:

Let’s say we want to analyse Competitors’ Digital Marketing strategy. Using tools like SEMrush, SimilarWeb, Buzzsumo, and Moz (even for free!) we can find out the keywords that competitors are ranked for. By comparing the top keyphrases across competitors, we can have a short list of “minimum standards”. Additionally, we can find the gaps in keyphrases and add them to the list as “reverse benchmarking”.
Further, by visiting the competitors’ recent blog posts, we might observe a shift in their strategy. The above-mentioned tools provide historical data, or “for what keyphrases the competitor is ranked for already” and their communications (blog, social media posts) may signal their next move.

From Insights to Action Plan

Gathering insights is useful, but it’s not strategy until it leads to decisions. To move from research to real-world action, based on the importance, ease of implementation and cost, we can limit the list of actions to a few that we are sure it will be implemented.

Conclusion: Knowledge in Action

Competitor analysis isn’t about admiring the market leaders or mimicking their every move; it’s about making smarter decisions based on what’s relevant to your size, your customers, and your resources.

By focusing on strategic competitors and applying simple but effective filters, which are identifying minimum standards, spotting blind spots and anticipating shifts, your analysis becomes a strategic tool, not just a research task.

For SMEs and early-stage businesses, even small insights can lead to meaningful changes. The key is to keep it actionable: prioritise based on what matters, what’s feasible, and what drives value.

Competitor analysis can become more than a research or slide in the deck, it becomes a catalyst for focus, differentiation, and growth.

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