How Can Companies Strategically Compete Against Their Peers.........And Themselves?

Marketers are always looking to optimize their perceived customer value proposition, and to improve the elements of transactional and relationship experiences needed to deliver that value. What competitors are doing always comes into the dialogue, and companies must be aware of how the value offered and the communication tools used by competitors in the marketplace impacts their own performance. This gives them the flexibility to mitigate threats, spot new ideas, improve products or processes, and/or offer more desirable value.

The methods used to understand competitors most often involve one or more approaches to benchmarking. Benchmarking goes beyond competitive analysis to interpret how peer organizations do what they do in terms of quality, time, cost and overall customer value dimensions. As identified by noted benchmarking theorist and management scientist H. James Harrington, “Benchmarking is creating better solutions upon a firm knowledge base. It is not copying the best.”