Via conducting environmental scanning, a company's marketing department can identify
newly emerging competitors in time to plan and execute an effective market strategy in
response. Environmental scanning allows organizations to acquire information happening
outside of the organization and identify trends. There are five environmental trends that a
company can monitor with competitive sources being one of those trends. Competition
refers to different companies who produce and sell a product or service that meets the needs
of a specific market. There are several different forms of competition, all of which are
important and should be considered when a company creates its marketing strategy.
Barriers to entry, power of buyers and sellers, and existing competitors and substitutes all
must be evaluated. One example is the smartphone industry. There are manufacturers all
over the world who produce smartphones, with Apple and Samsung reigning at the top of
the list. These two companies are constantly coming out with new smartphones that tout the
latest and greatest features. In order to have an edge in this market, the two companies need
to monitor their competition. They need to see what one another is producing and offering,
in addition to keeping an eye on any new competitors who want to enter this market with a
product even more appealing to the consumers in this market. A company's marketing
organization can ensure that it is able to identify newly emerging competitors in time to
plan and execute an effective marketing strategy in response to competitors is by doing
market research. Look at the market for your product and evaluate which other companies
are selling a product that could compete with yours. You could talk with your sales team to
find out which competitors do they see come up often in their sales process. You can check
on social media because in this day and age a lot of customers look to social media for
references or products they are seeking. You can investigate the conversations your
customers are having on on websites to identify your competitors. For example, when a
customer leave a review on your product it can be either negative feedback or positive
feedback. That is a conversation you could pay attention to because sometimes in a
negative feedback they may compare your product to another product that they may believe
is better and that can help you identify competitors as well. Social media is such a both
positive and negative impact on companies. I do agree that it can help a company figure out
who their competitors are and to see what they are up against. Commercials now seem to
show companies taking jabs at one another more than they have in the past. Apple and
Samsung are one of the most competing companies and it has been this way for quite a
while now.
