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How do I benchmark my business against competitors?

Sales & Growth questions

To stand out from your competitors in a fierce market, benchmarking is essential. The process is a long-term one and involves comparing key business metrics with those of your industry competitors. While this might seem like a complicated process, there are numerous benefits such as peer network building, continual improvement insights and staying ahead of the curve with market innovation and new opportunities.

Ways to help you deal with it:

Action plan

Using research to understand the business landscape

Impact : Medium

This action plan looks at how business leaders can use different types of research to build a better understanding of the business landscape.

ACTION PLANS are a structured list of steps designed to help you approach tackling a particular business challenge.

We explain why each step is important
Customise by setting your own completion dates and assign tasks
Helpful tools are provided for certain steps
A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available

Action plan

Building a network from scratch

Building a network is about making valuable contacts who can provide guidance during critical moments. Our action plan will show you where to start.

Action plan

Nurturing your network over time

Effort : Medium

Having a trusted network of people is an invaluable resource for business leaders. Our five-step action plan shares advice on nurturing your network.

Guide

An introduction to benchmarking your business against competitors

Finding out exactly how your business shapes up against your competitors is key to ensuring its success in a crowded market.

GUIDES break a challenge down, providing important context and real-world experiences.

Based on SME experiences, not corporate jargon
Filled with real-world stories
Achievable steps every business can take

Other support that's available

Monitoring your competitors

Monitoring your competitors

Competitor analysis can help you get ahead in a crowded market, but where should you begin? These analysis tools from Brandwatch are a good place to start.

Understanding competitive benchmarking

Understanding competitive benchmarking

Get to grips with competitive benchmarking to discover where your business stands in the market and how you can improve your position.

How other businesses have tackled something similar

Steven Hawke, Norway Inn

Real business story

Build a business network for mutually beneficial relationships and fresh perspectives

Building a business network in the hospitality industry has been essential in turning around the fortunes of Cornwall pub and hotel, The Norway Inn.

Afsaneh Parvizi-Wayne, Freda

Real business story

Learn from competitors to avoid mistakes and spot opportunities

Learning from competitors is vital to avoiding mistakes and identifying gaps in the market for Freda, an ethical sanitary product business.

Kane Dowell, Ask Mummy and Daddy

Real business story

Conducting market research led to new export opportunities

Discovering new customers to target requires research, but Ask Mummy & Daddy quickly realised the importance of being realistic about the time and money you can afford to invest.

The questions lots of businesses are trying to answer

What issue is keeping you awake at night? A bit of targeted support is often all you need to overcome those challenges.

Select a topic

Digital

How can I improve the digital presence my business has? How should I go about collecting data to improve my business? How should I use the data I have to improve decision making? How can I streamline and automate some of our business processes? How do I work out the best digital sales channels to use? How do I assess and choose the right technology to improve business operations? How do I effectively seek external digital support? How can I understand what digital tools or support my business needs? How do I know if my technology is robust enough for growth? How should I best budget and plan for new technology investments?

Leadership & Strategy

How do I learn to become a better leader? How do I improve the communication in my business? How do I get staff interested in our vision and values? How can I reflect on my own strengths and weaknesses as a leader? How do I give my team autonomy and get better at delegating? As a leader, how do I learn to trust others within my organisation? How do I apply learnings from other businesses to my own company? How should my role as a business leader evolve with the company’s growth? How can I balance short-term needs with long-term targets? How do I get better at noticing and reacting to warning signs?

People & Team

How can I improve my hiring and onboarding practices? How can I develop the skillsets of my workforce? How can I develop career paths for my staff? How can I run a better appraisals process? How should I performance manage my staff? How do I deal with a challenging member of staff? How can I increase staff engagement and motivation? How can I keep my best members of staff? How do I manage an effective remote workforce? How can I reduce employee turnover?

Planning

How do I better inform my business plans? How do I know when to scale up my business? How can I define and communicate my vision for success? How do I ensure my business can navigate a dip in trading? How do I know when to invest in my business? How can I get better at looking internally at my business? How can I get staff interested in the financial situation? How can I make my business more resilient to change? How can I balance ambition with setting realistic goals? How can I work out what required skillsets are missing in the business?

Sales & Growth

How can we develop new products and services? How do I develop a clear unique selling point? How can we better serve our most loyal customers? How do I financially plan for new opportunities? How do I build a network to support my business? How can I get a better return on investment from my marketing? How can I identify new customers to target? How do I create targets and KPIs for my staff? How do I make sure my team and processes are ready for growth? How do I benchmark my business against competitors?