Respect your competition

What do you think about your competitors? Do you bad-mouth them or use them as an example of ‘what not to do’?

Like many industries, accounting is undergoing a transformation that challenges traditional thinking. We have the utmost respect for those firms rising to this challenge.

Monitoring what other businesses do, how they respond to change and how they service their clients keeps us on track, pushing to be the best we can be.

When it comes to competitor analysis, there is a middle ground between being paranoid and being complacent. In most industries, there are often many customers and being secure in your point of difference provides a balanced approach. 

We opt for a formal competitor review on an annual basis as it provides an external perspective and feeds into annual planning. We identify our competitors and identify the attributes that our clients value, so we can understand why they chose us instead of another firm. We take customer feedback seriously and are not afraid to adapt how we do things. After all, if you are not moving forward, you are going backwards. We have a policy of never disparaging our competitors publicly or privately. Never. We actively embrace the great things our best competitors do (and those from other industries) and avoid those practices and strategies that lead us away from our goals and purpose.

Thinking about your business, what can you learn from your competitors? Who do your customers think your competitors are? In what areas do you out-shine your competitors?