Editing Competitor analysis (section)

==Competitive analysis==
One common and useful technique is constructing a ''competitor array''. The steps may include:

* Define the industry – scope and nature of the industry.
* Determine who the competitors are.
* Determine who the customers are and what benefits they expect.
* Determine the key strengths – for example price, service, convenience, inventory, etc. 
* Rank the key success factors by giving each one a weighting – The sum of all the weightings must add up to one.
* Rate each competitor on each of the key success factors.
* Multiply each cell in the matrix by the factor weighting.

Two additional columns can be added. In one column, a company can be rated on each of the key success factors (try to be objective and honest). In another column, [[benchmarking|benchmarks]] can be listed. They are the ideal standards of comparisons on each of the factors. They reflect the workings of a company using all the industry's best practices.