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Tag: Competitive Analysis

  • How to Analyze Your Competitor’s Business Model?

    Every business thrives by offering value to its customers and earning profits to sustain the industry. A business model tries to reflect this essence in a clearly defined structure. A business model highlights how a company creates, delivers, and captures value for its customers. It acts as a framework to decode the firm’s profit strategy. It includes the USP, key resources, key processes, and the profit formula of a business.

    A business model is a real competitive advantage for any business. A business model that helps and sustains a business gives it an edge over its competitors. Hence, companies study business models while doing competitive analysis.

    Today we will understand what business model competitive analysis is, why it is important, and how to leverage it for business success.

    What Is Competitive Analysis?
    Why Do Competitive Analysis?
    How Do You Analyze Your Competitor’s Business Model?

    9 Steps to Create a Successful Business Model

    What Is Competitive Analysis?

    A competitive analysis is in-depth research and examination of your business competitors. It aims to bring forth:

    • Main players or companies in the specific industry
    • Profit strategies
    • Key resources and processes

    These three factors are crucial to business success. Firstly, you need to know who you are competing against. Then, you need to know their profit strategy. Do they earn by cost minimization or focus on a niche market to offer a premium-quality product? A business’s profit strategy is what matters the most when it comes to competitive industries because the resources and processes can be replicated. However, strategy implementation is subjective and can have different results for companies.

    A business strategy comprises internal, external, and dynamic factors, which, in a nutshell, give a competitive advantage and define a firm’s performance. Internal factors include firm resources and policies. External factors include the USP and the company’s position in the industry. Contrarily, dynamic factors include creating unique resources to disrupt the market. One needs to analyze all the factors to get a comprehensive view of an industry. It is advisable to conduct such an analysis every year to stay updated on competitors and avoid sudden shocks. But what could be the benefit of studying your competitors so closely?

    The Extent of Leadership Pursuing Different Operational Business Strategies Worldwide
    The Extent of Leadership Pursuing Different Operational Business Strategies Worldwide

    Why Do Competitive Analysis?

    Competitive analysis has been part of running businesses. It is one of the crucial elements of the planning stage. It gives a head start to many firms by giving an overview of what others are doing and what can be replicated. In addition to this, a firm runs a competitive analysis to:

    1. Identify USP: “USP” stands for “unique selling proposition.” What sets you apart from your competitors? What is your market positioning? Why would customers choose you over your competitors? You need to know the USP of your competitors to understand why customers prefer your product. It will give you an understanding of customer needs and help you define a USP for your business.
    2. Estimate Entry Barrier: Not every industry makes it easy for firms to start their businesses. For instance, as easy as it is to get into the food industry, it is difficult to get into the oil and gas industry. You need to identify the level of entry barrier and barrier also. You need to know why the industry you are dealing with is easy or difficult to get into. This will help you to choose your USP and pick resources that cannot be replicated.
    3. Customer Expectations: What do other businesses offer that brings in more customers and loyalty? What are some of the most talked-about product features of your competitors? Why do people prefer other brands to yours? All these questions help you identify the customer expectations that help you enhance customer satisfaction.
    4. Find Market Gaps and Opportunities: What is your strength that brings in customers for you? What are some untapped potential/ resources in the market that not many competitors are using? Why are some or more companies failing or succeeding in the industry? You need to find the strengths, gaps, and opportunities to sustain yourself in the industry. Similarly, you could look for risks in the market and your weaknesses that competitors can leverage on.

    Overall, the competitive analysis makes businesses proactive by preparing them for any shocks and giving them a window to increase their profits. Anyways, a reactive business finds it much more difficult to analyze and prepare a strategy due to a lack of time and resources in the end moment.

    For instance, what if you discover a new subsidiary of your competitors that will increase their profits by 8% during the competitive analysis? This will give you enough time to prepare and execute protection measures.

    But now that we have discussed what and why, let us look at how to conduct a business model competitive analysis. It is a simple 4-step process, which might take a few weeks or months of deep research depending on its extensiveness, that gives you an edge and a head start in the industry.

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    How Do You Analyze Your Competitor’s Business Model?

    A business model study is a small part of competitive analysis. Competitive analysis is a broader study. Here is a simple 4-step process to analyze your competitor’s business model. It revolves around studying your competitors’ USPs, processes, resources, and strategies.

    Identify Competitors

    You start by identifying the competitors in your business. This includes direct, indirect, and substitute competitors.

    For instance, a direct competitor of Apple would be HP, Samsung, or Xiaomi, while its indirect competitor would be Google, Microsoft, or Amazon.

    These will be companies or firms that you will closely study to understand their business model. Opt for both the top and bottom firms to identify success and failure. We need to identify what leads to a company’s profits and losses.

    Examine Subsidiaries

    The next step is to look into the subsidiaries if any. These give a wider scope of competitors to study. Companies like Tata and Reliance have many subsidiaries. It is their multiple subsidiaries that sustain their business. Here again, look for subsidiaries that make a profit and those that serve no purpose. Identify the existence of each one and the role that they play for the business firm.

    For instance, Parle-G is one of the most popular products under its product line by Parle. However, it is not a profit-making product for the firm. Yet the company continues to sell it in the market to cater to market demand and build its brand image. It makes money and recovers the costs with other product lines.

    Analyze the Competitor’s Technology Stack

    Just like a business strategy, technology in itself can be replicated, but its derivatives cannot. Technology is just an enabler, and it totally depends on the business and how they use and leverage it.

    So, look into the tech stack and other technology adoptions of the business that save them money. Understand the costs and implications of these in your business. The vital part of the technology is its implementation, not the technology itself.

    Study Competitor Resources

    The last step is to analyze competitors’ resources using the VRINE model. It stands for value, rarity, imitability, non-substitutability, and exploitability and is used to understand the competitive advantage of resources. It simply requires you to answer four questions:

    1. Is the resource valuable? It should help meet market demand and protect against market uncertainties.
    2. Is the resource rare? It should be neither scarce nor widely available to competitors.
    3. Is the resource inimitable or substitutable? It should be difficult to replicate and yield similar benefits.
    4. Is the resource exploitable? If all the above criteria add up to a positive result for the firm, then look to see if it is exploitable.

    Be it tangible or intangible, you should run a VRINE test on all the resources to understand their performance and competitive implications.

    Strategic leadership can be acquired only by combining the right resources and capabilities. One must develop a strategy while keeping resources in mind and defining a business positioning. This acts as a competitive advantage to boost the firm’s performance.

    Conclusion

    Every company analyzes its competitors in order to stay current and ahead of the competition. The three core factors to get an edge over a competitor are defining strategy, resources, and firm positioning that can not be replicated. Strategy and positioning are hard to copy due to various factors, including each firm’s subjective implementation and policy differences. The resources and processes need to be disruptive in nature so that competitors cannot imitate them.

    FAQs

    What is competitive analysis?

    A competitive analysis is in-depth research and examination of your business competitors. It aims to bring forth the main players or companies in the specific industry, profit strategies, and key resources and processes.

    How do I analyze a competitor’s business model?

    There is a simple 4-step process to analyze your competitor’s business model:

    • Identify Competitors
    • Examine Subsidiaries
    • Analyze the Competitor’s Technology Stack
    • Study Competitor Resources

    What is the VRINE model?

    The VRINE model stands for value, rarity, imitability, non-substitutability, and exploitability and is used to understand the competitive advantage of resources.

  • Spying on Your Competitors – 10 Different Ways

    With the increasing number of options that are available to people on a product, competition has been on the rise since the last century. To gain an upper hand in the tussle between demand and supply, every company tries to understand the strategies of their competitors to prepare ahead of them and get a lead in the market.

    This kind of spying has become a very common part of any company that today there are people assigned to analyse the activities of their competitors. Spying over a company is easier said than done.

    It requires a collation of a lot of small but important things. In this article a few very important methods and spy tools that anybody who wants to understand what your competitor is doing are discussed.

    Let’s look at the 10 ways on how you can Spy on your Competition.

    Keeping Up With Their Literature
    Following on Social Media
    Look Out for Keywords
    Focus On SEO
    Follow the Ads
    Check Up on the Products They Promote
    Tracking Indexed Websites
    Checking Google Ranks
    Finding Backlinks
    Going Through the Reviews

    Keeping Up With Their Literature

    Here literature means any kind of text that they release on their behalf. These can be blogs, articles on papers, newsletters, surveys etc. It is obvious that they won’t share any information with their competitors, but following the above-mentioned one will help. You will get to know their ventures and campaigns before they actually happen. It is important to follow them judiciously and more important to analyse and elucidate the inner meanings if any.

    Following on Social Media

    There is no better campaigning alternative for a brand other than popular social media platforms to connect with customers and share their plans efficiently. The activities and engagements of your competitors on social media platforms tells a lot about the future plans.

    Not only that, it also tells a great deal about their digital marketing strategy as well. It is a great way to understand a significant part of your competitors’ ways of doing business.

    Look Out for Keywords

    As mentioned earlier, one of the most popular ways of setting a brand’s name is through social media campaigns. And here the importance of choosing the right keywords cannot be stressed enough. Hence, one of the best ways to check on your competitor is by trying to understand the keywords that they use to increase the traffic into their website. You can use various tools available online like SEMrush, Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, and Google Keyword Planner etc. to see the keywords used by your competitors rather than trying to understand each keyword.

    Focus On SEO

    Finding the keywords brings us to another important thing to be done. That is, checking their SEO tools. You might wonder what it is that makes your competitor have an edge over you despite selling the same kind of products, the answer might be in their SEO techniques. You can also understand the techniques that will bring organic traffic. There are tools like Positionly (now Unamo) which will really help in getting real time comparative data on website traffic.

    Follow the Ads

    Advertisements are a great way to entice customers and increase business. Ads will play a big role if they are formed correctly and placed rightly. The websites and platforms on which these ads come up is also very important. It tells a lot about their campaigns. You can track and spy on the websites and platforms on which their ads are displayed and plan accordingly.

    There are Ad Spying tools that give an insight into your competitor’s ads. One of the tools that can be used is AdSpyder. AdSpyder gives you an insight into the SEO strategy used by your competitors on different platforms. With the help of this tool, you can understand the secrets of your competitors and make them useful for your own ads.

    Check Up on the Products They Promote

    Promotion is a very important part of any marketing campaign. The nature of products and the way of promotion will tell you a lot of their strategies. It can be a great way to adapt better things and reject things that are unnecessary.

    Tracking Indexed Websites

    Indexing in Google is one of the most important things that any brands would do to increase their reach. Rather than going after all the websites of your competitor, track the websites that are indexed in Google. It will help you organise the work in a more efficient manner. Google in itself is a good tool to do it.

    Checking Google Ranks

    Checking Google ranks is a great way to know where you and your competitor stands as far as traffic is concerned. You should understand where your competitor is ranked for every relevant keyword that will be searched. Finding a competitor’s ranking alone is not enough. You should also analyse their growth over a period of time. It will help you get an idea of their pattern of growth.

    Backlinks are very important to maintain good rankings for your website. That makes it clear how important it is to find the backlink strategy of your competitor. It will help you get a better clarity on their marketing strategy. You will also have an idea on how to effectively use your backlinks to reap the best outcomes.

    Going Through the Reviews

    All the campaigns that brands do, boils down to one thing – customer satisfaction. It is the key to increasing business. Analysing the customer reviews is a great way to spy on your competitor although it might sound direct. While the review of the customer gives an idea about their reception of the campaign, the reply of the competitor tells a lot about their strategies. If the reviews are negative, it will be an insight to correct your mistakes before it gets out.

    Conclusion

    It is true that competition has increased significantly in recent times. But it also means that there is more scope for improvement and learning from mistakes without actually making mistakes now than ever before. Understanding your competitors’ marketing will really help you in getting an idea about consumer requirements and expectations.

    The above-mentioned steps are an integral part of this understanding and it is not an exhaustive list. These pointers are not to spy on your competitor but to serve as an opportunity to reflect upon your strategies and initiatives.

    FAQs

    Is spying on competitors illegal?

    It is not illegal to spy on your competitors unless you break laws, like hacking into the security of your competitor’s database.

    How can I see what keywords your competitors are using?

    BuzzSumo, SEM Rush, SpyFu, and Ahrefs’ are some of the top keyword research tools you can use to spy on your competitors.

    Why is it important to do competitor analysis?

    The purpose of a competitor analysis is to understand your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses in comparison to your own and to find a gap in the market. A competitor analysis is important because: It will help you recognise how you can enhance your own business strategy.

  • How to Do a Competitive Analysis on Social Media to Boost Your Marketing Strategy?

    Advertisements are a great way to popularise your company, its products, offers and whatnot. It creates a situation where an inevitable ranking of your company along with its rivals happens as far as viewers are concerned. From newspapers and billboards, today the space for this competition has gone to various social media platforms.

    Social media marketing has become one of the most important and efficient ways to interact and engage with your product users. Any popular company that controls the market will definitely have an excellent social media marketing strategy.

    Having made clear the importance of social media marketing, this article will talk about a few things that you can do to spy on your competitor’s social media marketing strategies. Competitor analysis is never a bad thing to do as the word spy makes it sound. It is an efficient way to improve yourself across the process to have a better standing in the market.

    Identify Your Competitors
    Identifying the Channels
    Gathering Data
    Keep an Eye on the Ads
    Analyse the Newsfeed of Your Competitors
    SWOT Analysis
    Automation of Tools

    Identify Your Competitors

    It is the first and the most important thing that you have to do before you start to monitor their digital marketing strategies. This is where you will make use of the right keywords to gather information about all kinds of competitors that you have got.

    Remember that not only the popular competitors are your only competitors. Look for all sorts of potential competitions as well. Making a list of competitors will help you improve the management of the situation in a better manner.

    Identifying the Channels

    There are a plethora of platforms where your competitors might be engaging with people. Generally ranging from popular social media networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram; it is very unlikely that your competitors’ options end here.

    Check for any blogs that your competitors might be using and other not so popular social media sites where your competitor might have good user engagement.

    Gathering Data

    This is the instance where you narrow down your monitoring of your competitors into what exactly they do. You can start with any of their  social media accounts, preferably Facebook.

    Go through the number of likes and comments that they get. You can use this information to understand whom you should target now. You can also use the advertisement facility of Facebook to arrange for these users to reach your website whenever they click the ad.

    Do not forget to look up for the demographic details of your competitors ads. Whenever you come across their ad in social media platforms use ‘more options’ available to dig in and understand the reach of their ads. You can use this information to model your strategies accordingly.

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    Keep an Eye on the Ads

    Ads being the basic foundation of social media marketing, be mindful of the things that get in along with the advertisements. Studies show that good quality captions will increase the traffic to the website by 6 to 7 times.

    Look at the value proposition, length of texts and the details addressed within the texts added. Also, look into the kind of ads they circulate. This is not to copy them blindly but is a form of self-introspection and a guide to what needs to be done and what needs to be avoided.

    The best way to do all these is by using ad spying tools to spy on your competitor’s ads. AdSpyder is one of the ad spying tools that can help you with spying on your competitor’s ads on various platforms. You can understand the strategies that they have taken and can implement the same on your ads, to make them perform better.

    Analyse the Newsfeed of Your Competitors

    Apart from Ads, your competitors’ newsfeeds should always be under your scrutiny to have a better idea of their plans. Based on the number of likes and comments, weigh their best engaging content and analyse it.

    The kind of language, images and call to action used should be looked upon. Going through their comments will be a great way to understand what aspect of the feed attracts them and what they do not like. It will be a cost-effective way to boost your social media strategy.

    SWOT Analysis

    Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors and your company is an efficient way to improve social media marketing. To facilitate this you can do a SWOT test which is expanded as Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threat. As the name suggests, it will help you identify your strength and opportunities available in the industry through an analysis of your competitor’s strength.

    Automation of Tools

    All the above mentioned tips are for the betterment of your business. It will be extremely helpful if you can automate the search process so that the only thing that you have got to do is to improve the efficiency.

    Even that can be achieved through various online tools available. Usage of tools to automate your search is highly recommended considering the unique and unfortunate  fact that the searching part is futile while the results are invaluable. So if you can automate your tools, then don’t waste your time.

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    Top Tools You Can Use to Ease Your Way to Analyse Your Competitors

    • AdSpyder
    • Zappier
    • IFTTT
    • Open Site Explorer
    • BuzzSumo
    • SEMrush
    • SE Ranking
    • Sprout Social
    • Phlanx
    • Ahrefs
    • Similarweb
    • Mailcharts
    • Owletter

    FAQ

    What is a social media competitive analysis?

    A competitive analysis is an analysis of your competition to find out what their strengths and weaknesses are, and how those strengths and weaknesses compare to your own.

    What should a social media analysis include?

    Followers, impressions, engagement, clicks/traffic, and mentions are important metrics to analyze while conducting a social media audit.

    What are some top competitors analysis tools?

    Sociality.io, Socialbakers, Sprout, Social, and Hootsuite are some of the top competitors analysis tools you should consider.

  • Why Business Analysts are Important for Organisational Growth

    In today’s world, growth and development are important in every sector. There is development in technology, infrastructure, science, as well as management. This rapid growth is making lots of things go outdated. The products or services without technological changes are also out of the market now.

    There are lots of changes that are taking place in a business environment. The traditional methods and techniques can no longer make them grow and succeed. The new economic policies, as well as change in the consumer mindset, are also a threat to businesses. So, therefore, to ensure continuity, a business has to upgrade itself and make suitable changes. If the business is, then it will be difficult for the business to survive.

    Who are Business Analysts?
    Important Roles of a Business Analyst

    Who are Business Analysts?

    Who is a Business Analyst and what is his role

    Business Analysts are professionals who are experts in analyzing the changes and also creating processes to implement the changes in the business. In this business era, the competition among the brands is also at a high level. The brands with higher technology/best solutions/standardization are quickly replacing the traditional businesses.

    Therefore, business continuity and survival have somewhat become difficult for the companies, this has created the need for business analysis. So, Business Analysts became a growing professionals in this corporate world. Every business needs Business Analysts in their companies to help them survive in this highly competitive corporate world.

    Professionals keep constantly checking business performance and its positioning and keep identifying all the key areas which require change, or modifications. Business Analysts help businesses adapt to strategies effectively and efficiently.

    Important Roles of a Business Analyst

    The roles and responsibilities of a business analyst differ from business to business. Businesses in different sectors require variable business analysis, But there are common roles and responsibilities which a business analyst has to perform in an organization.

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    Business Continuity
    Making Strategies
    Analyzing Upcoming Changes
    Data Analysis
    Growth of companies in comparison to growth in the sector
    Make cost-effective plans
    Analyzing and Solving Business Problems
    Future Projected Goals Analysis

    Business Continuity

    Business Analysts focus completely on understanding the business, workflow, positioning, and competency. The ability of a business to sustain itself and its capacity is understood by them. Once they collect the information and knowledge, they focus on all the points interconnected and linked with the company. They keep a factor check on such points to ensure business continuity and smoother operations.

    Market Analysis

    Business Analysts do the market analysis of the products and services offered by the business. Several factors associated with market analysis like the product, pricing, positioning, promotion, etc. are considered by analysts. Market analysis is done to ensure that the product/service offered by the business is capable to achieve its objectives. Business analysts make a complete assessment of all the marketing factors which can impact their business. In large organizations, market analysts are the ones who perform such functions, But in most organizations, it is the business analysts who focus on the market part.

    Making Strategies

    Business Analysts are also the strategy makers of the organization. They create different strategies to help the businesses continue their operations and achieve their objectives. And to do so, they build several strategies like growth strategy, market strategy, team strategy, and more.

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    Analyzing Upcoming Changes

    Predicting upcoming changes helps the organization to prepare itself for the situation. It will give an idea of how to change things to move the business in the right direction.

    Data Analysis

    Business analysts gather information associated with the business in different ways. They collect the data and keep a record of such data, These data are used to do further planning. The analysts identify many alternatives to gather more results. Out of all these alternatives, they focus on the ones which can give maximum output to the business. For Example, they can select the one alternative which gives maximum returns in fewer resources.

    Growth of companies in comparison to growth in the sector

    The Business Analysts do the complete industry analysis in which the business is involved. If the business is dealing in the dairy industry, then they will do a complete analysis of the industry. After analysis, they will compare the growth of the business in comparison to the industry, If the business lacks behind the usual industry growth then they make sure and fix the problem.

    Make cost-effective plans

    Business Analyst's Definition
    Cost-Effective Planning

    The business always focuses on more output at minimum possible costs. So the business analysts create cost-effective plans to implement the required changes. There are often lots of ways and plans, but the ones which are less costly and impactful will be more productive for the organization. It will save the organization extra expenses. Therefore, analysts focus on making cost-effective plans to implement business changes.

    Analyzing and Solving Business Problems

    Business Analysts are much involved in solving real business problems. They identify and analyze threats and then try to solve the problems. They have to maintain their speed of solving problems before time. Analysts are much concerned with ensuring business health. Therefore, they try to solve business problems as soon as they can.

    Future Projected Goals Analysis

    A company has many future projected plans and goals. All these goals and plans are analyzed by business analysts to create a process and method to achieve the projected goals efficiently. They focus on minimizing time duration, making the best use of resources, and cost analysis. Cost analysis is usually done to make sure that the business can achieve its future projected goals under the estimated cost.

    Business Analysts work more on data, and reports and make decisions based according to such reports. The growing competition in the market is increasing the need for more business analysts in the corporate world. This makes business analysts a growing profession in the corporate world.

    Conclusion

    Business Analysts understand the requirements of the business and help in predicting the problems in future. They work towards the development of the organization by building a marketing strategy, researching the efficient way to run the business and interpreting the data, Hence business analysts are considered important for organizational growth.

    FAQS

    Who are Business Analysts?

    Business Analysts are professionals who are experts in analyzing the changes and also creating processes to implement the changes in the business.

    What is Market Analysis?

    The process of collecting information that affects a marketplace is called Market Analysis.

    Why is Business Analysis necessary?

    Business analysis is important to identify vulnerabilities and issues in the business or its strategies and help implement necessary solutions.

    Why are cost-effective plans important?

    Cost-effective plans are important because it helps the organisation to focus on more output with lower expenses.

  • How to become a Business Analyst in 2021 (Complete Guide)

    Any form of business requires a multidimensional approach. It requires coordination between them as well. With the ever increasing globalisation and mechanisation, it is highly important to avoid gaps and discrepancies as far as businesses are concerned.

    This also means that there should be a connection between the IT related nuances and the business related realities. No aspects will work as independent entities any more.

    A Business Analyst is a person who bridges this gap. They are capable of effectively planning and predicting the behaviour of a business model through well informed technical tools that fit the firm.

    Data analytics is considered one of the most important arms of industry 4.0 and its scope in the future is predictable. If you are a science person who loves to be in the corporate world, then business analysis which comes under data analytics is the right choice for you. This emerging high potential job has a few prerequisites and a few steps before becoming one yourself. This article guides you through the details on how to become a Business Analyst in 2021.

    Who is a Business Analyst?
    Skills needed for a Business Analyst
    How to Become a Business Analyst
    Online Certification Courses for Business Analyst
    FAQ

    Who is a Business Analyst?

    Business Analysts are those who engage with large contents of data to derive patterns of occurrences. Their scrutiny will help improve the quality and efficiency of the business firm. They will help in understanding places where there is a performance gap and will suggest a better option to mitigate them.

    They focus on functions and processes of an organisation. As mentioned earlier, they serve as the mediators between technology and commerce. Through data analysis, business analysts become capable of simplifying complicated tasks into simpler ones by giving data driven recommendations.

    They strategically plan things for the company to reduce the chances of failure as much as possible. It requires a deep understanding about both market scenarios and information technology. The four main types of planning that business analysts do are :

    • Strategic planning – Depending on the needs of the company
    • Process design – Planning the flow of procedures
    • Business model analysis – To propose different market approaches and business strategies
    • Systems analysis – Based on the technical requirements

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    Skills needed for a Business Analyst

    Scientific temperament

    You are going to deal with big data and technology which are highly scientific. It demands you to be curious about new things, especially scientific ones. Only if you are able to understand the science of functioning can you identify the problems and recommend a feasible solution.

    Critical Thinking

    It can also be read as analytical thinking. As a business analyst, you serve as a link between information / data and business. In order to derive connections and solutions, one should be able to critically analyse the data available.

    It is because no observations will be implicit and the data analyst in fact has to decipher the problems and solutions from the data. Hence, a business analysts should be capable of critical thinking

    Organisational Skills

    It is important to properly classify the data available to get the best out of it. Although this is mechanically done, it is important to keep track of the data organisation.

    Carelessly organised data can give distorted results which will further affect the analysis. So be sure to develop a habit of organising things right from your own bedroom. Let that be a part of your lifestyle.

    Communication Skills

    Business Analysis is not a job done by a single person. It is not humanly possible also. Hence, many business analysts in a firm come together to discuss and collate their observations to reach a fruitful conclusion.

    To facilitate this, it is very important to have good communication skills. It is not only to put across your observations and inferences but also to absorb the most valuable information from others as well.

    Documentation Skills

    Keeping track of things is one of the most important parts of a Business Analyst’s job. They are to document the variations in the functions and processes of the firm so as to provide appropriate recommendations. Apart from that, such documentation is required for deriving a particular information from a different point of time.

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    How to Become a Business Analyst

    Considering the amount of technicalities behind the work that a business analyst needs to do, it is always better to train yourself professionally. However, the option to self learn is always open. Today you have a lot of courses on the same.

    Undergraduation

    If you are going for an undergraduate degree, go for a Bachelor in Business Administration in fields that you like. Some colleges offer courses in business analytics. But be mindful that it is different from business analysis. However, the fields are related and will definitely help you in your studies.

    During this time, learn more about computer programming as much as you can. Analysing case studies of different kinds will also help you in being a better candidate.

    Higher Education

    You can either go for an MBA which specialises in Business Analytics or allied subjects. Such a programme will really help you in further dwelling into the intricacies of the wide subject and will make you a pro. A postgraduate certificate will definitely aid you in getting good positions.

    Another thing you can do is that many international firms offer specialisation certificates that are widely approved. You can try undergoing their courses and earn your certificates. Some of these certificates are

    • IIBA Entry Certificate in Business Analysis (ECBA)
    • IQBBA Certified Foundation Level Business Analyst (CFLBA)
    • IIBA Certification of Competency in Business Analysis (CCBA)
    • PMI Professional in Business Analysis (PBA)
    • IIBA Agile Analysis Certification (AAC)
    • IIBA Certified Business Analyst Professional (CBAP)
    • IREB Certified Professional for Requirements Engineering (CPRE)

    These courses will help you in getting a senior Business Analyst position.

    Online Certification Courses for Business Analyst

    • The Complete Business Analysis Fundamentals Course + CERT by Udemy
    • Business Analysis and Project Management by Coursera
    • Introduction to Business Analysis Using Spreadsheets by Coursera
    • Excel to MySQL: Analytic Techniques for Business Specialisation by Coursera
    • Business Analysis and Fundamentals by Udemy
    • Business Analyst : Project Management Techniques and Tools by Udemy
    • Business Analysis Modelling Skills and Techniques by Udemy
    • Business and Data Analytic Skills by Edx
    • Business Analysis: Developing Requirements by Udemy

    FAQ

    What is the main role of a business analyst?

    Business Analyst bridge the gap between IT and business using data analytics to data-driven deliver reports to executives.

    What qualifications do I need to be a business analyst?

    You require an Undergraduate degree in computer science, business information systems, computing and systems development, and business management.

    How much does a a Business Analyst in India make?

    The average salary for Business Analyst in India is ₹7,00,000 per year.

  • The Five Forces Model to Determine Your Industry Competition

    The competitions are increasing rapidly in marketplace. These increasing competition can cause threat to every ongoing business. So it becomes important to determine such competitions and make strategies to exist in the market.

    What is Five Forces Model?
    Five Factors to Analyse Industry Competition

    What is Five Forces Model?

    Porter's Five Forces Model
    An Insight of Porter’s Five Forces Model

    The Porter’s Five Forces of Model is a tool which analyses a business competition and helps determining the level of competition an industry can face. This model was given by Michael Porter (a Harvard Business School researcher) in 1979.

    The tool focuses on five forces which can have an impact on the whole industry. Even after 40 years, it’s one of the effective methods widely used to do competition analysis.

    Five Factors to Analyse Industry Competition

    Porter's Five Forces Model
    Five Factors of Porter’s Five Forces Model

    According to this model, the five factors to analyse industry competition are:

    1. Threat of Entry

    We have already seen the rapid competition among the brands and industries. The new brands entering the market are creating competition for the existing brands as well as in the industry. But what if there are high cost and lots of process required to enter in the industry? There will an entry barrier among such industries.

    But what if it is easy to set up a business in the industry? Then there will be more threat of upcoming competitors in the market. So under this factor, the threat of entry will determine the industry competition. If there are difficult or strong barriers then business will have fewer competitors.

    For Example: It is not easy to enter in the Airlines Industry as it involves huge cost. So the industry will always have few players than most industries. But it’s easy to set up a café in the town. So there will be more players or more threat of entry in this field. The business dealing in the industry will be able to earn a limited amount of profit because there are more players in the market.

    Also Read: Must Read Startup Books for Entrepreneurs

    2. Threat of Substitute Products or Services:

    There are industries which have no or few close substitutes available in the market. But there are also industries which have one or more substitutes available in the market. The companies dealing in the industry with no or few closer substitutes will have an advantage than the ones with more substitutes. Even if the company increases its price to earn more profit, the customers will have to buy the product.

    But in the other market with more substitutes, if the companies increase the price then the customers will switch to substitute products. So the number of substitute products or services will determine the competition of the industry.

    For Example: There are more vehicles running on petrol, so the increase in the price of petrol won’t cause any change in the demand. There are no options available with them. But if the price of coffee will get increased, then people may switch towards tea (which is closer substitute of tea).

    3. Industry Competition

    An industry competition comprises the total companies which deal in particular industry. If there will be a large number of companies in the same industry, then the competition will be high. There will be cut throat competition in the market. Even a single change in the price or quantity can show more response in the market. The consumer’s enjoy lots of available opportunities with them.

    If companies increased a slight price in the competitive environment, then the customers will switch to other suppliers. If any company started giving exclusive deals and products at discounted rates, then the customers will move towards such business. The customers’ loyalty is diminishing these days. Consumers are much focused towards getting quality products at cheaper rates.

    In such a market, the businesses are dependent upon market forces to determine the prices. But if there is less competition in the industry, then the companies will have the advantage of maximising the price and earning huge profits.

    Also Read: How to find target market for your Startup

    4. Bargaining Power of Suppliers

    In the market, the powers remains among such businesses whose products are more demanded and few suppliers are there. So if you deal in such a business where the raw materials are heavily demanded and available with few suppliers, then you may have to suffer from the strong bargaining power of suppliers.

    The suppliers can sell the materials at a higher price, and you have to take it because you need raw materials to run your further business operations.On the other hand, if there are more suppliers and raw materials are easily available, and then you will be able to buy materials at fewer rates.

    Suppose, a person running a shoe manufacturing unit will be dependent upon the leather. If there are less leather suppliers then the shoe brand will have to pay more to get leather. His business unit will solely be dependent upon leather because he cannot make shoes without it. So anyhow, he will have to buy the leather even at high price.

    Also Read: How to Make Customers Loyal?

    5. Bargaining Power of Buyers

    The business enjoys huge profit if the product is scarcely available i.e. heavily demanded but quantity is less. Whenever the demand of product gets increased, its price also gets increased. The heavy demand of products requires more products to be supplied. But due to the limited availability, the product only reaches in few hands.

    There will be more buyers in the markets, but few sellers. In such a case, the buyers will have to accept the product even at high price. But consider if there are more sellers in the market? In this case, the buyers will have more power to bargain and get their price reduced.

    So the business will have to sell products at less cost. By this way, he will earn low profits. If the business doesn’t reduce cost, then the customer will switch to other seller and his stocks will remain unsold.

    The customers become more sensitive to price if they find more options in the market. If the industry has more sellers, then the company won’t be able to earn more profit. He will have to agree with the buyer, because of large number of sellers available. So companies dealing in such industry will have more threat to buyer’s bargaining power.