Content Hub

Content Hub

Business Execution and Moving Forward in your Market

Rebecca Grech

21-12-22
business growth, finance, management, profit

Understanding your Market

When operating a business, having limited knowledge can be hazardous and puts you at a disadvantage among your competitors. For a business to thrive, it must have ample knowledge about its customers, trends and the market in which it operates. Being informed and up-to-date with the advancements and needs of the market will outline whether your business will grow sustainably. By understanding the nature of the business and its market you can work on delivering a service or product that will resonate with your target audience.

Such knowledge is not only crucial for business growth, but also for retaining your current market share. Every day, your business will face various advancements and opportunities that if missed or ignored can mean you lose out on current clientele. Many opportunities can be identified even through basic analysis, such as looking into the following:

  • Customers and strategies
  • Market trends
  • Market segments
  • Products and services
  • Pricing and value
  • The supply chain
  • Competitors
  • The buying process
  • Key drivers affecting demand

The outward-looking process of trying to understand your customer and your market opportunities better will undoubtedly reveal where you can win new business and evolve the company across the board.

  • Where are we . . . GREAT?
  • Where can we . . . IMPROVE?
  • Where are we . . . VULNERABLE?
  • Where is our business… EDGE?

By answering the above questions, you can start discovering new opportunities and push yourself and your business to its full potential by unlocking the reality of your current capabilities and opportunities as a business. If the above questions are answered honestly, constructively and systematically, these will give you a thorough understanding of how you can achieve maximum business growth with the least risk involved.

What Makes Your Company Different?

Learning about what makes your company different will give you a better understanding of how and where you will fit best within your market, to be able to deliver the most value. Sometimes this might mean to expand on attributes that might deviate from the norm of your industry. By focusing on these identified attributes, will help you deliver what your customers want, you will give buyers a reason to choose your brand, your product, your service, over what is offered by your competitors. This can be achieved by looking at your business through the customer’s point of view. If what you’re offering is exactly the same as every other operator within your market, then your customers can easily go the next one as there is no reason for them to choose yours. It’s important to ask yourself:

  • What makes your company different?
  • What makes your company better?
  • What do you want your customers to think?
  • What do you want your customers to do?

Differentiate your business from the crowd

Having a distinctive company personality will help with setting you apart from the competitors within your market. By defining your ‘why’ and communicating it with your audience, you will give your potential customers a clear reason to opt for your product or service and will put your business as a top-of-mind brand. This top-of-mind awareness will make your business the brand that first comes to mind when your customers think of a particular industry or category.

Sharpen your focus; think about your ‘why’ from the point of view of your customers, in order to understand what the customers believe in and the compelling reason to select your business rather than your competitors.

We can help you make your company stand out from your competitors by assessing and analysing the needs of your target market and highlighting what makes your product or service different to the rest. By focusing on what customers appreciate in your work, you would be able to build upon and improve to mould to the growing market.

Author: Rebecca Grech

I’m Rebecca Grech, your local business doctor for Malta

Other Articles By This Author