Business Position

Description

An external “snapshot” of the client organisation’s business performance relative to its position in the marketplace.  This assessment identifies the organisation’s strengths/weaknesses/opportunities for growth and reviews the organisation’s performance relative to direct competitors and industry leaders.

Client Value

• The creation of subsequent deliverables (e.g. (Confirmed) Business Vision, Critical Success Factors, and Stretch Targets) requires an understanding of the key issues dominating the competitive environment in which the client is working.
• The team will be educated on the company’s performance relative to close competitors and/or other industry leaders.
• This deliverable helps to solidify the Case for Change by highlighting both the urgency and the magnitude of the required transformation.
• Not understanding the Business Position of the organisation can lead to the development of short-sighted Critical Success Factors and Stretch Targets that do not result in longer-term improvements (such as increases in sales and sustained growth in market share).

Approach

The information provided in the Internal Organisational Overview is combined with information from external sources to compare and contrast the client’s business vis-à-vis its major competitors and the marketplace in general. The resulting analysis will pinpoint the organisations strengths, as well as issues to be addressed if the client wants to improve its market position.

1. Collect and review documentation.
1. Review information gathered from literature searches, organisation documents and materials on the client and key industry issues.
2. Gather any additional information needed for external analysis.
2. Analyse key performance information .
1. Analyse external and/or internal performance in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, growth, quality, inventory management, customer service, etc.
2. Research/Access available data on competitor/industry performance statistics (Benchmarking).
3. Summarise  potential performance comparisons.
4. Construct preliminary comparisons to other operating divisions and/or competitive/industry data.
3. Assess positioning in marketplace.
1. Review organisation’s performance.
2. Itemise internal constraints and external market trends.
3. Assess high-level competitive advantages/disadvantages.
4. Summarise  findings into high-level position assessment that identifies market share, profit contribution and the current delivery strategy.
4. Share/confirm major findings with client.

Guidelines

Problems/Solutions

• Use information that is readily available, without spending too much time searching for hard-to-find information.

Tactics/Helpful Hints

• Leverage industry expertise and benchmarking resources to provide value to organisation; this exercise represents an opportunity to enhance the credibility and demonstrate value early in the BPI effort.
• Have some understanding of key performance indicators for the industry and for the client in particular so that competitive analysis that is done will have some relevance/ value to the client.
• In addition to current business position, analysis should identify (at a high level) future industry trends and assess how internal strengths and weaknesses position the client to take advantage of these future trends.