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When you launch a new business you need to conduct three types of research. These include market research, audience research, and competitor research. Out of all these, competitor research is probably the most important one. 

Digging deep into what your competitors are up to will unearth heaps of useful data that you can use for many purposes within your businesses. To show you the importance of competitor research, we have listed some of its benefits below. 

Helps create better products

A big mistake some amateur entrepreneurs make is creating products simply because the entrepreneur needs them. Sometimes this might work because the general public also had a need for the product, but a lot of the time it fails. 

This is why the easiest way to be successful in any industry is to create products that are similar to what your audience is already buying, only making it better or more affordable. This will give it an edge and help you sell more, and it’s something that smart brand managers know how to do well.

When you are determining which products to offer, you can simply go to your competitors’ websites and see what products of theirs have the most reviews, and who they are targeting with their advertising. You can also use a company research tool to obtain further details. 

Research tools can unearth information such as the keywords your competitors rank for on search engines, which web pages they send the most traffic to, how much they spend on ads, and which influencers they work with. 

If they are spending a lot of money to promote certain products on their website, it’s definitely one of their best-selling ones. You should think about creating something similar, but better. You can use the data from the audience research to see what your audience wants and incorporate features that will satisfy them and make your product different. 

Sometimes you might want to think about removing features and making the product cheaper as Amazon did with its tablet. When Apple launched the iPad, everyone was trying to make a better tablet and beat Apple, but they were all failing. Amazon, on the other hand, made a cheaper tablet with fewer features and drove a ton of sales, because this is what their audience wanted. 

Makes it easy to create better offers

A lot of people think that the success of a company chiefly hinges on how much traffic it generates or how much social proof it has. These factors matter, but they won’t work well enough if your product offering doesn’t resonate with your audience. You’ll struggle to get clients to sign a contract or even be noticed in a crowded niche. 

When a brand has a poor offer, it disappears in the sea of competition.  

If you have a good offer, you will generate the highest ROI no matter which marketing method you use. This is why you should conduct some competitor research to figure out your top competitors’ offers and then adapt their offers to your own sales strategy. 

Here are the different things to look for while assessing an offer:

• Product: As discussed in the first point, you need to create products similar to the ones your competitors are selling, but with key differentiators that are communicated clearly. You also need to make sure there is an audience that wants to buy them.
• Price: Your product needs to be at the right price. If it’s cheaper than your competitors’, you will naturally generate more sales, but you might drive away customers who think that it is cheaper because it’s inferior. So, think about this and come up with a price that shows that you are selling a good product. Also, make sure that you generate a minimum 10% profit. Don’t price yourself out of the market. 
• Benefits: Your offer messaging needs to display the benefits of your product in a unique way, especially when compared to your competitors. So, look at the way your competitors present their products and use that information to inform your unique selling proposition and sell it with good copywriting. 
• Bonuses: If your competition is giving away bonuses for buying their products, you should too. For best results, give buyers something that complements the product. 
• Guarantee: When your product has a guarantee or warranty (or both), it makes potential customers feel more confident about the purchase. It shows that you believe in your product so much that you are willing to give a solid guarantee such as a no-questions-asked refund or a free replacement. Analyze the guarantee your competition offers and come up with something that will ensure you outdo them. 

Discovers threats

Nowadays, the market is constantly evolving. Many of the products that sold like hotcakes just a few years ago aren’t even available anymore, and the marketing techniques that worked are today considered invasive or easily ignored. 

Regularly keeping tabs on the competition will help you figure out how to adapt and survive in the short term and in the future by either coming up with new products or modifying your marketing strategy. 

Sometimes you will also learn about companies you can acquire and quickly grow your business. 

Helps you set benchmarks

One of the keys to business success is setting the right benchmarks. Quite often people don’t consider the industry benchmarks and set unrealistic goals and end up disappointed when they don’t reach them. 

One way to ensure that you set realistic goals is by checking out the industry benchmarks. There are tons of studies like this one from GetResponse on email marketing statistics, that show you the targets that you can aim for. 

You can always do the research by yourself and start from scratch, but studies like this can give you a headstart. Your first goal should be to reach average performance levels for your sector. You can later focus on exceeding them. 

Improves your marketing

It takes time to get successful marketing correct. Very few people get it right the first time, as you need to conduct several experiments with techniques such as A/B testing to see which landing page converts better, which ads generate the most traffic, and which copywriting style generates the most sales. 

This will usually take up months. But you can cut short the time by copying some of the techniques that your competitors are using. This won’t help you always get it right the first time, but it can help you reach your marketing goals quicker. 

For example, if you want to use SEO to market your business, you can analyze your competitors’ websites to see what they rank for and try to rank for the same keywords. Before trying to organically rank for these keywords you can also take advantage of features such as responsive search ads and see if traffic obtained from these keywords converts. 

Moreover, if you are using ads, you can see which ad creatives and landing page design styles are working for your competitors. 

Now invest in competitor research

If you aren’t doing any competitor research, it can negatively impact your business. This is true whether you are just launching or are already established. As you can see above, there are many strategic benefits of doing competitor research. 

Yes, it does take a lot of time to do the research, but this is what separates the top companies from the rest. They regularly analyze their audience, the industry, and the competition and modify their products and marketing strategies to stay relevant and thrive in the ever-changing business atmosphere. 

The post 5 ways competitor research can benefit your business appeared first on noupe.

It is an undeniable fact that the global business environment is ever-evolving. In the bid to be more competitive, organizations are now giving up on conventional business approaches to make way for innovative advantages. Is your organization doing enough to keep pace with the paradigms emerging in the corporate world? Is your organization doing enough to embrace change through effective change management strategies?

Today, for your business to scale new heights, staying aware of the prerequisite changes and implementing them in time has become a necessity that you cannot overlook. As a business leader, you have to keep the momentum of transformations going and also facilitate their smooth incorporation into the organization. In fact, it would not be wrong to say that today, effective change management is synonymous with a sustainable competitive advantage. The better your organization embraces crucial transitions the greater will be the success. 

Defining change management 

Moving forward, to be on the same page, let us for once looking at a simple definition of change management. Change management is simply the spectrum of methods and procedures that an organization applies to define and implement transformation in either internal or external processes. Besides, transformations can also arise in the core values, organizational structure, or strategic goals of an organization and they need to be facilitated effectively for the desired success. 

Since transformation is the way ahead for businesses to excel, your organization needs to embark on the journey of change management more frequently than ever before. However, relying on the right approach to change implementation is as crucial as the very notion of change management. As a business leader, you need to ensure that positive changes are implemented and managed with positive outcomes. 

The success rate of organizational change management 

Do you think all organizations undertake change management objectives? Of course, from a small business to a big shot multinational enterprise, every organization is pursuing change management to thrive in a changing environment. But the real question is, are all of them doing well at bringing and managing change? As per Gartner, the success rate in organizational change management is a mere 34 percent. Now, this clearly hints at the fact that for most businesses, effective change management still remains a hard nut to crack. 

So clearly, it is crucial for businesses to identify the right approach to successful change management and stick to it. Having said that, this blog delineates a stepwise approach to worthwhile change management for organizations to stay ahead of their contemporaries. So, let  us change gears and get started without further ado. 

A delineated approach to successful change management

1. Conducting effective strategic analysis to recognize change

What do you think is the most basic aspect of effective organizational change management? What is the first step on the ladder of steering your organization toward positive transitions? The answer lies in the effective identification of prerequisite changes at regular intervals. 

Organizations need to know which changes are crucial for them to cultivate great momentum for greater future success and they need to know this in a timely manner. Your success prospects linked to a change will by default be on the lower side if your competitors have already deployed them. Having said that, you need to act smart and more importantly act fast. 

The significant question here is, how can organizations recognize the prerequisite changes in real-time? For that, you need to effectively apply strategic analysis methodologies to identify the opportunities and threats in the external business environment. ‘’

You need changed strategies for exploiting opportunities as well as mitigating threats before they translate into hazards. Moreover, the need for change may also arise from the internal analysis of the company’s strengths and weaknesses. 

The bottom line is that organizations need to conduct frequent strategic analyses both externally and internally to identify changes in real-time.  As long as you succeed in doing so for your organization, you will always stay one step ahead of your competitors. Needless to say, you should only allocate time and resources to changes that are actually necessary or offer sustainable competitive advantages.

2. Defining change parameters 

When you have recognized the change that your organization needs to incorporate immediately, the next step is to define the crucial change parameters. The following are the relevant and vital change parameters that you need to be looking at.

• The need for the transformation 
• The vision and values behind the change 
• The impact of the change 
• The success metrics of the change 
• The scope of the change 
• Accountability for implementing the change 
• Composition of change management teams 
• Contingencies in change 
• Strategic communication strategies 

Defining the above parameters is salient to the further steps in the change management process. These parameters define the change in terms of its impact and success. Further, they enable the identification of the key players in change implementation and how communication strategies will work. This is essential for you to set SMART objectives for successful change implementation. 

In fact, collectively, clearly defining these elements of the change management process gives a perfect head start to the ambition of successful change management. You have to make it a point that these aspects are defined well before you proceed further in the pursuit of cultivating positive transformations in the organization. Your vision and values coherent to change should be absolutely clear so that you can persuade others to be on board. Fair enough, isn’t it?

3. Building consensus among stakeholders 

Stakeholders have a great influence to assert in the course of business decisions. As a change leader when you propose a change, it is essential to winning the confidence of the investors, top executives, and the customers. Having said that, you first need to carry out a stakeholders’ analysis to identify the key people who have a significant role to play in supporting the change initiative. 

Subject to how you have defined the need for the transformation and its expected impact, you need to communicate the same to the stakeholders. This is where strategic communication and transparency will play a salient role. You cannot drive massive organizational changes until your investors are not on board, right? Driving organizational changes can be an exorbitant affair after all and the entire bandwagon of investors and C-suite executives needs to be involved. 

So, to foster that consensus, your effectiveness as a communicator and your persuasive skills have to be at their best. The greater the cohesion you are able to create between the idea of change and the stakeholders the smoother will be the implementation. Makes complete sense, right?

4. Initiating the planning phase

When you reach this stage in the change management process, you would have defined all parameters of the change. Moreover, you would have also built consensus among stakeholders on the need for transitions within the organization. 

From hereon, you need to plan comprehensive measures for incorporating the change into the organization. From the introduction of the change to its institutionalization organization, you need a clear roadmap based on meticulous planning. Besides, everyone who is a part of the change management team should be clear with their roles and responsibilities. As a leader, you should also plan for ways in which you will foster high engagement and motivation among your team. 

Having said that, you need to develop strategies on how you are going to communicate the vision and values of the change to your team members so that they can actively participate in the change process. Further, you need to clearly define the key performance indicators that will track the performance of employees with respect to their contribution to the change. 

Parallel to your plan A for implementing and sustaining the transformation, you should also work on a contingency plan to account for unprecedented challenges in the entire process. Also, it is recommended that once you have made a clear plan for change implementation, you should conduct an effective gap analysis to identify any shortcomings before the plan is put to execution. Having open discussions with your team members on the plan can also be a great way to make the plan far more accurate and actionable.  What do you think about it? 

5. Extending support to employees

When the status quo changes and massive transitions transpire in the organization, it is natural for employees to feel perplexed. Employees are likely to show resistance to change and may also feel nervous about coping with the new status quo. This is where the top management needs to extend complete support to the employees. Winning the confidence of your team is as significant as convincing your investors that the change is transpiring for the better. After all, your employees are the ones who will make the transformation a part of the new normal by working around it relentlessly. 

Besides, explaining the need for the change and how employees too will benefit from it may not be enough. The change may also require the employees to upskill or reskill to build new core competencies that are essential for sustaining the new status quo. 

The responsibility lies with the management to introduce efficient training and mentoring programs in the workplace to assist employees in aligning their skills with the new ways of doing things. 

However, learning initiatives without high learning engagement would only be redundant, isn’t it? As a leader, you need to find great ways in which you can help your team members get rid of their resistance and actively participate in the change process by manifesting greater openness to learning. This is indeed going to be a crucial cog in the wheel of successful change implementation and management. As far as training is concerned, you can reap the benefits of LMS (Learning Management Systems) to foster a culture of advanced remote learning with a high scope of engagement.

6. Setting control measures

Establishing control measures for monitoring and measuring the progress of the change implementation is the key to sustaining the change within the organization. With the application of effective and relevant metrics, you need to consistently track the different stages of change management. 

As a leader, it is one of your key responsibilities to monitor and supervise any new changes that occur within the organization. It is always better if the monitoring is done in terms of quantifiable measures of performance and progress hence, the establishment of key metrics is essential.

You can simply segregate the control measures into two segments. The first segment is linked to the implementation of the change while the second is about institutionalizing it within the organization. The control measures too may be largely different for these two phases in successful change management. 

Effective monitoring will assist you in driving consistent refinements in strategies and actions linked to successful change management. Monitoring will offer you a clear picture of how successful or unsuccessful a change turned out to be in terms of its business benefits and institutionalization within the organization. If there are any lapses, you can briskly identify them and address them to improve the pace of progress. Eventually, success in terms of sustaining the change within the organization will be measured in terms of your control over the entire process.

7. Establishing measures for continuous improvement 

Successful change management merely does not stop at the integration of the change into the processes within the organization. As a change leader, you also need to create a roadmap for driving continuous improvements in the new status quo once a transformation is institutionalized. 

Having said that, effective strategies for continuous improvement of the newly incorporated transitions have to be formulated. Also, you need to fix accountability at all levels to make the change far more successful in the future such that the objectives linked to the change are met. For that, key performance indicators related to continuous improvement also need to be established and explained to those responsible for driving enhancements in the embedded transformation. 

Of course, your idea of change is linked to the long-term benefits and strategic goals of your organization. Do you think those goals can be accomplished in a few days after a change has been smoothly implemented? The change has to go through different stages of optimization for its benefits to reflect in the long–term goals of your organization. 

Therefore, framing continuous improvement strategies is as salient as any other step in the course of successful change management that can help an organization build sustainable competitive advantages. 

To encapsulate, business success in contemporary times is a lot dependent on organizations’ ability to adapt to the prerequisite changes with respect to the internal or external environment.

Traditional ways are no longer enough for business success and to keep pace with the ever-evolving business world, organizations need to run against each other in the bid to inculcate positive changes before their counterparts. This explains why change management is such a key process in the modern workplace. The above strategies will surely help you a great deal to drive great business outcomes with exemplary success in change management. 

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What does a positive company culture look like? If you are to ask Southwest Airlines, they will tell you their culture entails creating an environment in which every employee knows they matter. They go further to state that they lean on the elements of appreciation, recognition and celebration. 

Company culture, although implemented differently by many companies, is the set of practices that guide how people are led and nurtured in an organization. In many instances, the company’s core values will be reflected in the culture. 

It has become increasingly important for businesses to pay close attention to their culture. Here are seven benefits of a positive company culture. 

Increased job satisfaction

A positive company culture plays a large role in determining how content employees will be with their jobs. Culture determines how people are treated, how they treat each other and how the company deals with both internal and external stakeholders.

When the culture is positive, employees are happy to come to work, they will gladly recommend the company and will stick around in tough times. 

Improves teamwork and collaboration

One of the benefits of a positive company culture is improved teamwork. When teams are strong, people share ideas readily, they help each other achieve the common goal, stress levels reduce and employee well being improves.

Employees spend a lot of time at work with their colleagues, it is important that team member relationships are healthy.  Research now shows that it is beneficial for workmates to go beyond simply being cordial, to being friends. 

A positive company culture, one that emphasizes caring for colleagues as friends, supporting each other, compassion and understanding, treating one another with respect and gratitude will improve both teamwork and collaboration. 

Positive company image 

Perception matters. Another benefit of positive company culture that businesses can enjoy is an improvement in how their external environment perceives them. A company that is known to have fair policies in dealing with their customers and their community will be more attractive to new customers. 

Just like social media can be used to signal a positive company culture to potential hires, it has the same effect with your customers. 

Increased productivity

With improved teamwork, you can expect to see an improvement in productivity and communication which in turn impacts productivity.

In a Harvard Business Review article titled “Proof That Positive Work Cultures Are More Productive”, co-authors Kim Cameron and Emma Seppala point out that “a large and growing body of research on positive organizational psychology demonstrates that not only is a cutthroat environment harmful to productivity over time, but that a positive environment will lead to dramatic benefits for employers, employees, and the bottom line.”

When you have developed a positive company culture, you will find that you will have employees who are confident enough to communicate their ideas and to ask questions where they need clarity. Employees will also be comfortable enough to speak up when they make a mistake, knowing that they are in a learning versus punitive environment. 

Reduces stress in employees

Who hasn’t had a stressful week or month at work? It happens. However in a toxic workplace, stress is chronic. The signs of a stressed out workforce are easy to see: loss in productivity, staff absenteeism, increased illnesses, and over time, an increase in employee turnover.

Another benefit of a positive company culture is a reduction in stress. Because there is open communication and prioritization of employees, they will be able to speak up when they feel overwhelmed. 

The responsibility for mitigating stress also lies with supervisors and managers. Employees should be encouraged to take their breaks, for instance. Having employees who work 10 hours, seven days a week isn’t a sign of productivity, rather it is a precursor for stress, loss of morale and burnout.

Good leaders should be encouraging their team to try developing a daily walking habit, or undertake regular meditation or some other form of relaxation. 

Remember that managers will be the drivers of culture in the company so they should lead by example. As they encourage employees to take their breaks and annual leave, they should do the same. 

Ability to attract top talent

A positive company culture is of benefit when it comes to attracting talent. And that culture can be seen right from the initial hiring stages. If teamwork is a part of your culture, you can go ahead and introduce job candidates to the people they might work with.  

Another way culture can be used to attract talent is through employees. Today, job candidates are able to do a lot of background research on a job before they walk in for the interview.

Sites that feature online reviews from employees, the company website, your social media platforms and those of your employees all provide an accurate window into your company culture. 

For example, if an employee shares about a reward they received to their LinkedIn profile, it can indicate that your company culture is one that values and rewards people.

Talent will also learn of your company culture from former employees. It can be through word of mouth or through sites like Glassdoor where employees review their employers. 

More streamlined decision making 

Let’s go back to the example of Southwest Airlines. Their corporate culture puts employees first, ahead of profits and ahead of customers. Should management find themselves in a situation that, for instance, would compromise their employees but earn the company more money, the decision to choose their employees isn’t a hard one to make. Their culture guides them. 

Taking this kind of stance shows employees that they are valued and this will in turn increase employee morale. 

In the same way that positive company culture guides the behavior of employees, it also makes it easier for them to make decisions. Employees can refer to the culture guidelines when it comes to making tough decisions or choosing between competing choices. 

In Summary 

It is no longer enough to only provide employees with a decent workplace and a salary. In the modern work world, the needs of the employee and so the responsibilities of the employer have expanded.Managers and business owners need to work on creating a positive company culture that inspires their teams and leads them to do their best work. The benefits of a positive company culture can be enjoyed by remote teams and by companies both big and small.

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