example of competition in a business plan

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Write the Competition Section: Business Plan Writing

Aayushi Mistry

• December 21, 2023

11 Min Read

What is the Competition Section?

Your business plan includes a lot of operational sections. Every section holds a different importance. In that case, competition is one of the most fundamental aspects of your business. And so, it needs to be added to your business plan. The section that explains your competition is your competition section.

While deciding where to add the competition section, pay attention to the flow of your business plan. Moreover, it also depends on the priority. So, it must come next to your objective, problem statement , product/services, and target audience.

Why Do You Need a Competition Section in Your Business Plan?

The why of your business plan depends on your purpose-

If your purpose is to direct your business growth:

Your competition status can play as your reference point. Here, the competition section serves as a medium for understanding your competition. So, you can develop strategic positioning.

This can help you and your team to look at comparative strengths and weaknesses exclusively. So, you can easily come to the strategies that work in your favor, and give you a competitive advantage .

If your purpose is to create a business plan to seek investment:

You must add it to inform your investors about your competition, market position, and brand promise.

You need to describe the competition to reassure probable investors that you know and understand your competition. And that you are ready to take advantage of opportunities and avoid the pitfalls.

Apart from this, your purpose also makes a difference in how to write your competition section in your business plan. However, the difference is minor, and the effect of it is profound.

How to write a competition section in your business plan?

Regardless of your purpose mentioned above, you have to include all the steps mentioned below. Wherever there is the need for that ‘minor’ change, we will include it under the same step.

While following this step, we suggest you take action side by side. So, it becomes easier to implement. Moreover, before putting up your competition section, be ready with your competition data.

Also, make sure that you have conducted a competitive analysis and processed data of at least 5 competition companies. Once you have everything you need, you can go through the following steps-

1. Determining and Documenting Your Business Position

Regardless of your purpose, you will have to follow this step. And there isn’t any major difference here. You need to know your business position in the market and document it properly. However, we will first talk about the determining part. And then, document it for the competition part of your business plan.

How to determine your market position?

Gather crucial details for your company and your competitors’ companies. When you have all the data, you compare them. And put it up on the competition graph.

The details you will need include:

• Sales Figures
• Profit margins
• Distributors

You can also add the marketing column if you find the need. Here, your goal is to make clear positions with respect to your target markets.

However, there are two most reliable ways to determine your position:

1. Position Mapping Graph

You can do this for 5 main aspects of your business-

• For product characters
• The quality of products/services
• The number of products/services
• For user/customer friendliness

You can either put all the points in the same graph or use a separate graph for each.

How to do this?

• Get graph paper and divide it into 4 quadrants
• Add your parameter(s)
• Start plotting your and your competition’s point

2. Competitive Matrix

A competitive matrix is a method that helps you determine your competitive advantages. Usually, you put together this tool to note your market credibility. It is an industry analysis tool that compares the characteristics of you and your competition.

How to do it?

• You draw out a matrix
• Position your company and competitors, at the top, the horizontal blocks
• Put all the aspects you want to compete with, in the vertical blocks
• Put the tick marks to draw the competition

How to document in the competition section for your business plan?

Once you complete the determination, the documentation is quite easy. In fact, you can put the final graphs in your draft. It will not only give color and variety but also make it easy to understand.

While you put all the graphs together, you have to explain your competition and the parameters that you have selected. Moreover, you can go ahead and explain why the companies are your competition. Also, explain why you picked particular parameters.

Mention the date and time frame in your graphs. It makes it easier to have a deeper knowledge of your competition.

Basically, the documentation is journaling the process of drawing the graphs. You may not want to add every detail. As that could make the entire section a little longer than expected. But at the same time, don’t leave out the important details.

As for the difference, you can follow the same process for both purposes. Only make sure that your draft for your investors has been relatively concise. As for your company draft, you can add as many details as you want.

Why is this step important?

When you follow this step, the process of putting the competition section for your business plan is literally half done. It brings you the clarity that you, your team, and your investors need to make your business successful.

2. Determine and Draft Your Competitive Advantages

Determining the competitive advantage.

This process may look hard. But it is not. In fact, it just includes one step to the above one. It can be done side by side while you are drawing the comparison and putting them together in different graphs.

You have to note and add the points where you are doing better (or can do) better than your competition. And then, note how that bonus point can bring you an advantage(s).

Drafting your competitive advantage

You have to note down your bonus points and explain them in detail. You can use those graphs too for more clarity and variety. It is better that you make this up to the point. If you are writing for the investors, they might just want the rounded points after seeing the graphs.

And if you are using it for directive purposes, even then, it is good to have a well-rounded point. However, you might need the back details along the way ahead. So, you can note it down too.

With this step, you became assertive about your success and future in the market.

If brought in front of your investors, they quickly get a clear idea of whether to invest in your business or not. In a way, it helps you store their faith in your business.

And if you are only planning to put the direction of your company’s success, it gives you a clear picture of your strengths and opportunities. In a way, it restores your faith in your product/services.

3. Put in the customers’ review

This step is just like putting that final nail in the coffin! Plus, regardless of the purpose of your business plan, this step and section remain the same. Even more interesting, it takes less time than the two above-mentioned steps.

Here’s how you do it-

• Find out the reviews and ratings of all the competitors, you had begun the process with.
• Be discreet. Don’t only add the good points or the bad points. Add the good, the bad, and the average rating and reviews.
• You can go ahead and make three sections named- The Good, The Bad, and The Average.
• Add 10-12 reviews in total and put them in the respective sections (3 or 4 in each).
• You can find reviews from search engines, social media, websites, forums, and magazines.
• If you want authentic reviews and have enough time and resources, you can even run surveys. Or contact agencies that run unbiased surveys.

How to draft it-

• Put them just the way they are, even if they have typos. Try not to tamper with them.
• Add them at the end of the competition section for your business plan.

Why is this step important

• To add more clarity and favor to your business.
• Gives a chunk of customer points of view.
• Restores your, your team’s, and your investor’s faith in your company.

Basic Template

And that’s all about the competition section in the business plan. We hope we have given you all the information that you needed. However, regardless of how you find notes, we have listed the FAQs for the competition section for a business plan. You can refer to it for questions that look similar to yours.

FAQs for your competition section

What if we think that our business does not have competition?

Ideally, every business has competition. If not directly, then indirectly. Basically, there are three types of competition- Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary.

• Primary: The business that has similar products/services as you and, serves the same target audience.
• Secondary: The high-end or low-end services/products as you. There may be a slight change in the target audience, depending on the spending capacity location and more.
• Tertiary: They have completely different products/services but satisfy the same needs of your target audience.

So, if you think that you don’t have primary competition. Look closely, you may have a secondary or tertiary competition.

What if that time my competition changes?

You have to run the test from the start and draft the section from scratch. It may be the same even when you want to add and remove the parameter.

Do we need a separate team to draw a competition analysis and draft it in the business plan?

Not importantly. However, it is important for everyone involved in your team to be qualified and have adequate experience. If you think that your team doesn’t have that, you can form or hire a separate team.

How long should the competition section be in the business plan?

It should be detailed. But it must not take up most part of your business plan. Moreover, it also depends on the number of other sections you are adding. And it also depends on what these other sections are. In any case, there is no harm in being concise. No matter who the reader is, we all prefer a quick read.

Where else can we showcase this analysis?

You can use this analysis in marketing and sales strategies. You can even use it to further research and develop your product/services.

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Since childhood, I was in awe of the magic that words bring. But while studying computer science in college, my world turned upside down. I found my calling in being a copywriter and I plunged into a world of words. Since then, there is no looking back. Even today, nothing excites me to find out the wonders the words can bring!

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How to Write the Competitor Analysis Section of the Business Plan

Writing The Business Plan: Section 4

Susan Ward wrote about small businesses for The Balance for 18 years. She has run an IT consulting firm and designed and presented courses on how to promote small businesses.

The competitor analysis section can be the most difficult section to compile when writing a business plan because before you can analyze your competitors, you have to investigate them. Here's how to write the competitor analysis section of the business plan.

First, Find Out Who Your Competitors Are

If you're planning to start a small business that's going to operate locally, chances are you already know which businesses you're going to be competing with. But if not, you can easily find out by doing an internet search for local businesses, looking in the online or printed local phone book, or even driving around the target market area. 

Your local business may also have non-local competitors that you need to be aware of.

If you're selling office supplies, for instance, you may also have to compete with big-box retailers within a driving distance of several hours and companies that offer office supplies online. You want to make sure that you identify all your possible competitors at this stage.

Then Find Out About Them

You need to know:

• what markets or market segments your competitors serve;
• what benefits your competitors offer;
• why customers buy from them;
• as much as possible about their products and/or services, pricing, and promotion.

Gathering Information for Your Competitor Analysis

A visit is still the most obvious starting point - either to the brick and mortar store or to the company's website. Go there, once or several times, and look around. Watch how customers are treated. Check out the prices.

You can also learn a fair bit about your competitors from talking to their customers and/or clients - if you know who they are. Other good "live" sources of information about competitors include a company's vendors or suppliers and a company's employees. They may or may not be willing to talk to you, but it's worth seeking them out and asking.

And watch for trade shows that your competitors may be attending. Businesses are there to disseminate information about and sell their products or services; attending and visiting their booths can be an excellent way to find out about your competition.

You'll also want to search for the publicly available information about your competitors. Online publications, newspapers, and magazines may all have information about the company you're investigating for your competitive analysis. Press releases may be particularly useful. 

Once you've compiled the information about your competitors, you're ready to analyze it. 

Analyzing the Competition

Just listing a bunch of information about your competition in the competitor analysis section of the business plan misses the point. It's the analysis of the information that's important.

Study the information you've gathered about each of your competitors and ask yourself this question: How are you going to compete with that company?

For many small businesses, the key to competing successfully is to identify a market niche where they can capture a  specific target market  whose needs are not being met.

• Is there a particular segment of the market that your competition has overlooked?
• Is there a service that customers or clients want that your competitor does not supply? 

The goal of your competitor analysis is to identify and expand upon your competitive advantage - the benefits that your proposed business can offer the customer or client that your competition can't or won't supply.

Writing the Competitor Analysis Section

When you're writing the business plan, you'll write the competitor analysis section in the form of several paragraphs. 

The first paragraph will outline the competitive environment, telling your readers who your proposed business's competitors are, how much of the market they control and any other relevant details about the competition.

The second and following paragraphs will detail your competitive advantage, explaining why and how your company will be able to compete with these competitors and establish yourself as a successful business.

Remember; you don't have to go into exhaustive detail here, but you do need to persuade the reader of your business plan that you are knowledgeable about the competition and that you have a clear, definitive plan that will enable your new business to successfully compete.

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• How to create a competitive analysis (w ...

How to create a competitive analysis (with examples)

Competitive analysis involves identifying your direct and indirect competitors using research to reveal their strengths and weaknesses in relation to your own. In this guide, we’ll outline how to do a competitive analysis and explain how you can use this marketing strategy to improve your business.

Whether you’re running a business or playing in a football game, understanding your competition is crucial for success. While you may not be scoring touchdowns in the office, your goal is to score business deals with clients or win customers with your products. The method of preparation for athletes and business owners is similar—once you understand your strengths and weaknesses versus your competitors’, you can level up. 

What is a competitive analysis?

Competitive analysis involves identifying your direct and indirect competitors using research to reveal their strengths and weaknesses in relation to your own. 

Direct competitors market the same product to the same audience as you, while indirect competitors market the same product to a different audience. After identifying your competitors, you can use the information you gather to see where you stand in the market landscape. 

What to include in a competitive analysis

The purpose of this type of analysis is to get a competitive advantage in the market and improve your business strategy. Without a competitive analysis, it’s difficult to know what others are doing to win clients or customers in your target market. A competitive analysis report may include:

A description of your company’s target market

Details about your product or service versus the competitors’

Current and projected market share, sales, and revenues

Pricing comparison

Marketing and social media strategy analysis

Differences in customer ratings

You’ll compare each detail of your product or service versus the competition to assess strategy efficacy. By comparing success metrics across companies, you can make data-driven decisions.

How to do a competitive analysis

Follow these five steps to create your competitive analysis report and get a broad view of where you fit in the market. This process can help you analyze a handful of competitors at one time and better approach your target customers.

1. Create a competitor overview

In step one, select between five and 10 competitors to compare against your company. The competitors you choose should have similar product or service offerings and a similar business model to you. You should also choose a mix of both direct and indirect competitors so you can see how new markets might affect your company. Choosing both startup and seasoned competitors will further diversify your analysis.

Tip: To find competitors in your industry, use Google or Amazon to search for your product or service. The top results that emerge are likely your competitors. If you’re a startup or you serve a niche market, you may need to dive deeper into the rankings to find your direct competitors.

2. Conduct market research

Once you know the competitors you want to analyze, you’ll begin in-depth market research. This will be a mixture of primary and secondary research. Primary research comes directly from customers or the product itself, while secondary research is information that’s already compiled. Then, keep track of the data you collect in a user research template .

Primary market research may include: 

Purchasing competitors’ products or services

Interviewing customers

Conducting online surveys of customers 

Holding in-person focus groups

Secondary market research may include:

Examining competitors’ websites

Assessing the current economic situation

Identifying technological developments 

Reading company records

Tip: Search engine analysis tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush can help you examine competitors’ websites and obtain crucial SEO information such as the keywords they’re targeting, the number of backlinks they have, and the overall health of their website. 

3. Compare product features

The next step in your analysis involves a comparison of your product to your competitors’ products. This comparison should break down the products feature by feature. While every product has its own unique features, most products will likely include:

Service offered

Age of audience served

Number of features

Style and design

Ease of use

Type and number of warranties

Customer support offered

Product quality

Tip: If your features table gets too long, abbreviate this step by listing the features you believe are of most importance to your analysis. Important features may include cost, product benefits, and ease of use.

4. Compare product marketing

The next step in your analysis will look similar to the one before, except you’ll compare the marketing efforts of your competitors instead of the product features. Unlike the product features matrix you created, you’ll need to go deeper to unveil each company’s marketing plan . 

Areas you’ll want to analyze include:

Social media

Website copy

Press releases

Product copy

As you analyze the above, ask questions to dig deeper into each company’s marketing strategies. The questions you should ask will vary by industry, but may include:

What story are they trying to tell?

What value do they bring to their customers?

What’s their company mission?

What’s their brand voice?

Tip: You can identify your competitors’ target demographic in this step by referencing their customer base, either from their website or from testimonials. This information can help you build customer personas. When you can picture who your competitor actively targets, you can better understand their marketing tactics. 

5. Use a SWOT analysis

Competitive intelligence will make up a significant part of your competitor analysis framework, but once you’ve gathered your information, you can turn the focus back to your company. A SWOT analysis helps you identify your company’s strengths and weaknesses. It also helps turn weaknesses into opportunities and assess threats you face based on your competition.

During a SWOT analysis, ask yourself:

What do we do well?

What could we improve?

Are there market gaps in our services?

What new market trends are on the horizon?

Tip: Your research from the previous steps in the competitive analysis will help you answer these questions and fill in your SWOT analysis. You can visually present your findings in a SWOT matrix, which is a four-box chart divided by category.

6. Identify your place in the market landscape

The last step in your competitive analysis is to understand where you stand in the market landscape. To do this, you’ll create a graph with an X and Y axis. The two axes should represent the most important factors for being competitive in your market. 

For example, the X-axis may represent customer satisfaction, while the Y-axis may represent presence in the market. You’ll then plot each competitor on the graph according to their (x,y) coordinates. You’ll also plot your company on this chart, which will give you an idea of where you stand in relation to your competitors. 

This graph is included for informational purposes and does not represent Asana’s market landscape or any specific industry’s market landscape. 

Tip: In this example, you’ll see three companies that have a greater market presence and greater customer satisfaction than yours, while two companies have a similar market presence but higher customer satisfaction. This data should jumpstart the problem-solving process because you now know which competitors are the biggest threats and you can see where you fall short. 

Competitive analysis example

Imagine you work at a marketing startup that provides SEO for dentists, which is a niche industry and only has a few competitors. You decide to conduct a market analysis for your business. To do so, you would:

Step 1: Use Google to compile a list of your competitors. 

Steps 2, 3, and 4: Use your competitors’ websites, as well as SEO analysis tools like Ahrefs, to deep-dive into the service offerings and marketing strategies of each company. 

Step 5: Focusing back on your own company, you conduct a SWOT analysis to assess your own strategic goals and get a visual of your strengths and weaknesses. 

Step 6: Finally, you create a graph of the market landscape and conclude that there are two companies beating your company in customer satisfaction and market presence. 

After compiling this information into a table like the one below, you consider a unique strategy. To beat out your competitors, you can use localization. Instead of marketing to dentists nationwide like your competitors are doing, you decide to focus your marketing strategy on one region, state, or city. Once you’ve become the known SEO company for dentists in that city, you’ll branch out. 

You won’t know what conclusions you can draw from your competitive analysis until you do the work and see the results. Whether you decide on a new pricing strategy, a way to level up your marketing, or a revamp of your product, understanding your competition can provide significant insight.

Drawbacks of competitive analysis

There are some drawbacks to competitive analysis you should consider before moving forward with your report. While these drawbacks are minor, understanding them can make you an even better manager or business owner. 

Don’t forget to take action

You don’t just want to gather the information from your competitive analysis—you also want to take action on that information. The data itself will only show you where you fit into the market landscape. The key to competitive analysis is using it to problem solve and improve your company’s strategic plan .

Be wary of confirmation bias

Confirmation bias means interpreting information based on the beliefs you already hold. This is bad because it can cause you to hold on to false beliefs. To avoid bias, you should rely on all the data available to back up your decisions. In the example above, the business owner may believe they’re the best in the SEO dental market at social media. Because of this belief, when they do market research for social media, they may only collect enough information to confirm their own bias—even if their competitors are statistically better at social media. However, if they were to rely on all the data available, they could eliminate this bias.

Update your analysis regularly

A competitive analysis report represents a snapshot of the market landscape as it currently stands. This report can help you gain enough information to make changes to your company, but you shouldn’t refer to the document again unless you update the information regularly. Market trends are always changing, and although it’s tedious to update your report, doing so will ensure you get accurate insight into your competitors at all times. 

Boost your marketing strategy with competitive analysis

Learning your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses will make you a better marketer. If you don’t know the competition you’re up against, you can’t beat them. Using competitive analysis can boost your marketing strategy and allow you to capture your target audience faster.

Competitive analysis must lead to action, which means following up on your findings with clear business goals and a strong business plan. Once you do your competitive analysis, you can use the templates below to put your plan into action.

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How to Perform a Competitor Analysis (Examples & Templates)

Written by: Masooma Memon

Thorough competitor analysis is a crucial aspect of any marketing plan .

It helps you understand how challenging it could be to crack a market, what strategies could work, and how you can best position your brand.

It can also tell you what strategies won’t work, what the customer’s expectations are and how much they’re willing to pay.

Without it, you likely won’t survive a day in a new market.

You need to study your competition not only when you’re starting out but also periodically after cementing your feet in the market. This way, you can stay on top of your game, consistently growing your market share.

Not sure where to start?

We’ve got an easy, 6-step competitor analysis template for you in this guide. We’ll also share templates to help you document your findings.

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Table of Contents

What is a competitor analysis, the benefits of competitor analysis for businesses, how to conduct a competitor analysis (step-by-step), 10 competitor analysis templates to use right away, ready to try out this competitor analysis template.

Competitor analysis is the strategic research of your competitors to study their strengths and weaknesses.

By taking the time to analyze your current and potential competitors, you can identify areas for improvement. You want to look out for things like their value proposition, product, marketing and sales tactics.

Besides helping you find gaps in the market, studying your competition helps in the following ways:

• Identify ways to outperform your competitors.
• Understand market trends so you can make sure your business is consistently meeting and even exceeding industry standards.
• Learn what your competitors are doing right. This is important for staying relevant in your market and growing your market share.
• Find out how your product is different from other similar products. This helps you improve brand positioning and informs your marketing copy.

A competitor analysis seeks to study all available information on your competitors, including their pricing, differentiators, positioning, product portfolio, strengths and weaknesses.

The steps below will help you uncover all this and more.

Step 1: Create a List of Your Competitors

Chances are you can recall who your competitors are in a breath.

But if you’re new, identifying who your direct and indirect competitors are will take some time.

Keep in mind that direct competitors offer products and services similar to yours, positioning them as a substitute for your business. They also mostly target the same audience.

On the flip side, indirect competitors are businesses that don’t necessarily offer the same product or service. However, their offering can solve the same customer problem that your business solves.

An easy, cost-effective way to identify competitors is by typing in your product type into the Google search bar.

Let’s suppose you have a project management software . A quick Google search on this will turn up names of companies offering the same type of software.

For creating a comprehensive list of competitors, make sure you google synonyms too. This could be a “project management tool” for the example above.

Another useful tactic is to conduct the same research on social media .

Type in what your business does and you’ll see similar business names pop up.

You can also surf hashtags to learn how other companies are using them.

Lastly, if you’re conducting market research interviews , pay attention to the brand names that target buyers mention in their interviews.

Step 2: Study Competitors’ Product Offerings and Market Share

Once you know who your competitors are, start studying them one by one.

Go through their product portfolio. Look at the products they offer, how they position and price them. Record your findings in a worksheet so you can track and analyze the data you’re gathering. Visme allows you to do this quickly and easily.

You can also grab a template from Visme’s template gallery and create a product and pricing sketch for each competitor. This will make it easy for you to visualize individual competitors.

To determine competitors’ market share, use Statista or a similar resource to get your hands on the numbers.

Track and visualize your findings in this template.

Step 3: Perform a SWOT Analysis

A Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis helps you study what competitors are doing to win customers. You can also use it to identify gaps in your market .

For example, let's say a competitor’s customer support team takes pretty long to get back to customers. You can use the information to provide faster customer support and a better experience for customers.

As you hunt for competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, study the following areas:

• Sales strategy
• Brand positioning
• Marketing plan
• Discounts strategy
• Website experience
• Customer support and experience

Running an ecommerce business? Study competitors’ shipping and product return strategies as well.

An effective way to jump-start studying competitors’ strengths, weaknesses and more is through social listening. The goal? To identify what customers are saying about brands on social media channels they use, including chat forums and groups they are a part of.

A similar approach is to study customer reviews. This will help you understand what your competitors’ customers are saying about them.

Are they satisfied with the product quality? Or are they put off by their onboarding process? Do their support requests take long to get answered?

As you go about researching, record your findings in a SWOT analysis template like this one:

If you’re a Visme user, you have the benefit of coordinating your SWOT research efforts with your team.

If you and your business partner are working together on the research work, you can both access and edit the worksheet in Visme at the same time.

To do this, use the Share option from the top right side of your project dashboard in Visme. Select "Share Privately" and add your partner to the project.

From there, you two can collaborate on design , leaving comments for each other.

Step 4: Dig Deeper Into Competitors’ Pricing Strategy

We’ve already mentioned that you need to make notes on how your competitors price their products. But studying their pricing strategy goes deeper.

First, review what discounts competitors offer. Then look at how often they offer discounts.

Studying your competitors’ promo strategies will help you understand how they’re attracting customers and growing sales. It will also give you a good idea of how much the target market is willing to pay and what their expectations are in terms of discounts.

In addition to the manual research to uncover individual competitor pricing, use the same research tools mentioned above — social listening and customer reviews. They'll help identify what customers are saying. Pay attention to how customers respond to the discounts and promotions that competitors run.

Some businesses tend to offer discounts shortly after they launch new products. This can be a turn-off for shoppers who like to shop for the latest collections to stand out from their peers.

Similarly, other businesses extend product deals now and then despite telling customers it’s their last chance to buy.

See if and how that annoys customers and if there’s an opportunity for you to offer something more relevant and unique to the target market.

Step 5: Analyze Competitors’ Marketing Strategy

It’s important to study how competitors are raising brand awareness and moving leads down their marketing funnel .

Begin by identifying where your leading competitors are funneling their resources. Is it PPC they’re investing in? Or are they taking the community-building approach to attract, engage and nurture customers?

Chances are your competitors are big on educating customers, so they’re investing in content marketing .

Also, look at which channels competitors are focusing on. Is it Twitter or Reddit? Or do they have a strong presence on Instagram ?

The answer to this will help you understand where your target audience is present and which marketing channels you should focus on.

Take Clearscope , an SEO content optimization tool, for example. They take an educational approach to their marketing by creating lots of webinar content.

Ahrefs , another SEO tool, on the other hand, is also big on the educational approach. But they create blog content, not webinars.

Step 6: Document Your Research

In this last step, compile all your research in written format.

Create an action plan that includes a tactical list of steps to take. This way, you can discuss and prioritize steps to take with your team. Aim to be concise as you create this competitor analysis document.

If you create a wordy report, nobody will read it. But if you create a document that summarizes your findings and visualizes data in the form of charts and graphs, more people will read and appreciate your hard work.

Want some good news? Visme makes it uber-simple to create easy-to-read graphs and charts . It can help you create an easily shareable and visually engaging analysis document.

Design graphs using templates like the one below:

Alternatively, create new charts in your presentation or report .

All you have to do is to head to Charts & Graphs on the left side of your design dashboard and choose the type of chart you want to create.

From there, Visme gives you a chart to enter data so it can create a custom graph for your project. You can resize the graph you create, tweak its color, animate it and add other interacgive effects.

When you are done designing your document you can easily share it with the rest of your team . Head to the Share button at the top right corner of your design dashboard.

Now select Share Privately from the left side and give permission to team members. Choose whether they can view your work, comment on it, or edit it.

If you prefer to get a link for the work you’ve created, simply grab it from the bottom of the page and share it with your team.

By going into Advanced Settings on the left side, followed by Privacy . You can also allow your team to download the competitor analysis report as a PDF.

And, finally, for the templates that we promised:

1. Retail Store Competitor Analysis Infographic Template

Use this infographic template to record your competitors’ pricing, unique selling proposition (USP), revenue and more.

Since the information is arranged in a table format, you can easily study how each competitor stands against another and how they compare to business.

2. Competitor Analysis Interactive Presentation Template

If you’re looking to pitch some growth ideas to your executive team, this interactive competitor analysis template is for you.

It’s neatly designed so that all information is easy to read.

There are a handful of slides in the template that use tables to compare competitors. You can also always add more slides or remove some to suit your needs.

3. Logistics Firm Competitor Analysis Infographic Template

This is the perfect template for studying and comparing two competitors.

If you prefer, you can also use the beautifully designed template to analyze your business against your leading competitor.

And if need be, you can add another row for comparing another competitor.

4. Edtech Company Competitor Analysis Infographic Template

This is another competitor analysis template to pitch two competitors against one another.

What makes it different from the template above is that it arranges all the comparative pointers at the center. This way, you won’t need to keep looking to the left side to see which pointer you’re studying.

5. Sales Consultant Competitor Analysis Worksheet Template

This is a great template to record findings on each competitor.

By using it, you can easily get a snapshot of each of your competitor’s free and paid products, USP, features, target market and the marketing channels they use.

6. Media and Marketing Agency Competitor Analysis Worksheet Template

This template is perfect for recording not just your competitors’ products, features and pricing but also their SWOT analysis.

Consequently, this competitor analysis template can serve as your readable database with all your research findings.

7. Nonprofit SWOT Analysis Infographic Template

If you’re looking to record your competitor’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, then this template is perfect.

And if you’re conducting several competitors’ SWOT analyses, make sure you use this template for each one of them.

8. TrackFast Technologies Sales Battlecard Template

This competitor analysis template is useful for comparing your business with your leading competition.

As well as a comparative table, it also features space to record other essential details such as company overview, key differentiators, customer pain points and benefits.

9. Design Agency Competitor Analysis Worksheet Template

This one is a simple, minimally-designed competitor analysis template for comparing various competitors.

If you need to add another column, you can easily do so by editing the template in Visme.

10. Design Tool Competitor Analysis Infographic Template

Lastly, we’ve got this competitor analysis template.

Its best feature is that the template divides each column into sub-categories, which makes it easy to analyze each aspect.

For example, within the product column, you can easily learn about a competitor’s product features, pricing and USP.

So you see, competitor analysis is critical for tapping into and growing in a market.

But remember, analyzing your competitors and their moves is only part of the task. The other part involves documenting your findings in an easy-to-read and understandable way. This is key to making sure your team implements the findings from the research.

Want to start recording your findings? Sign up for Visme’s document creator for free today and start documenting actionable takeaways.

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About the Author

Masooma Memon is a pizza-loving freelance writer by day and a novel nerd by night. She crafts research-backed, actionable blog posts for SaaS and marketing brands who aim to employ quality content to educate and engage with their audience.

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How To Write A Competitive Analysis For Your Business Plan

The Startups Team

The competitive analysis section of your market analysis in your business plan is essential. Knowing your competition is as important as knowing your product and your customer. Market gaps tell you where to develop your product and internal weaknesses tell you where you’re vulnerable to losing customers.

A solid competitive analysis is your way of showing that you know exactly where you stand among your fiercest competitors — and that you have a way to out-maneuver them. The best way to think of the argument you’re trying to articulate is:

“Here is where we can gain the most customers (offense) and here’s where we could potentially lose them (defense).”

Your competitive analysis should start with your SWOT Analysis — Strengths, Opportunities, Weaknesses and Threats — to borrow a grad school MBA’s favorite acronym.

Inside the Investor’s Mind

Your investor is probably thinking something like this:

“This idea sounds good, but I’m worried that current or future competition will simply crush this company. I need to know where they are going to stay ahead of their competition in the minds of their customers. I also need to know how they plan on defending whatever market position they capture.”

So here’s what you can do to reassure them.

Lead with your strengths . Talk about what aspects of your product are the best in class and why your customers will fall in love. Companies win based on their ability to win over customers.

You don’t eat at Wendy’s because it’s less terrible than McDonald’s. You eat there because you like their food a lot more. You also eat there because the Baconator cheeseburger is sooo good!

Talk about why customers love your Baconator. Talk about what you offer that just blows people’s minds. Be very descriptive and dig into how those strengths really stand out. Don’t assume for a moment that because you understand the strengths that anyone else does.

“Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse” Customers dine at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse primarily because it is considered the most upscale dining experience in their city. This lends itself well to special events that command a higher price point.

“Tinder” Our customers use Tinder over traditional dating sites because they get immediate responses from potential matches and the interface is so simple it’s fun.

“Local Boutique” Customers shop in our local boutique because they want the experience of interacting with our staff and the enjoyment of trying on clothes in person.

The best way to present your strengths is to start with your number one greatest strength. If investors don’t think your greatest strength is interesting, you can be assured that your third greatest strength isn’t going to make up for that!

In each of these sections of the SWOT Analysis, begin with a few introductory sentences, like the examples above, and then offer a longer narrative explanation below. If the investor understands the point you’re making in just a couple sentences you don’t want to belabor their attention with a crazy novel of an explanation.

Opportunities

Your opportunities are all about expansion. You realize your competition is sleeping on the job and you’re ready to pounce on that opportunity to eat up some delicious market share.

Your opportunities typically come in three flavors:

1. Areas your competition is currently weak

2. Expansion of your customer’s current needs

3. Untapped markets

Ideally, you can tap into all three opportunity categories or you have some special flavors of your own. Your goal here isn’t to list every last opportunity; it’s to show that the market has obvious room for expansion that viable startup (like you) could build a real business in.

Areas of Weak Competition

This is one of the few times in life where it’s OK to pick on someone else! If you’ve made it this far into the plan, it’s because you’ve found a good reason that your would-be competition is dropping the ball.

When sizing up your competition it’s important to have a balanced assessment. You want to avoid the straw man argument. The straw man argument is one when you act like you’re refuting someone’s argument, but in reality that argument was never made by that person.

Instead, focus on how well you know the weakness exists. Show that you have done your homework and that you have a real inside track on why this weakness is legitimate.

The more convincing your research on competitor weakness the more excited investors will get. Don’t skimp here.

Expansion of Current Needs

It’s your job to not only paint a picture of what your customer needs now, but also of what your customer needs next. These needs may not be something you can fulfill now, and that’s fine. What’s important here is that you’re showing that you’re thinking further down the road.

“Our customers who purchase our iPhone will need apps to download, music to listen to, additional cables to charge with, and listening accessories like headphones and Bluetooth speakers.”

Your expansion of current needs should start with obvious extensions of need and then include a few bigger picture potential areas that you may not even get to. It’s good to show what’s more probable and then what’s possible.

Untapped Markets

If you’re not expanding into current markets then you’re moving into the great unknown — untapped markets.

Untapped markets are equally exciting and terrifying to investors. On the one hand, it gets everyone pumped to think about a ton of low-hanging fruit that can be gobbled up easily. On the other hand, that fruit is often sitting in a grove that may or may not even exist.

Your challenge is to show that these untapped markets do in fact exist (read: show your research) and that you can tackle them quickly and efficiently before your competition does.

“We believe that the market for a low cost version of iPhones in underdeveloped countries is even bigger than the U.S. market, because over two thirds of citizens have no access to land lines or cabled Internet. Our iPhone Lite, combined with a global reach for cellular service, will make this critical line of communication both affordable and accessible to millions.”

Don’t let the idea of untapped markets be a golden ticket to make wild claims. Untapped markets only exist if you can build a cogent case around them. The quality of your case is the difference between an investor nodding their head and shaking it.

Demonstrating your weaknesses isn’t the same as saying “we’re so painfully vulnerable we’re not even viable!” Every business has weaknesses, especially in the startup phase. You can bet anyone leaning into your plan is going to jump on these immediately.

Your goal here isn’t to sugar coat the nature of your weaknesses – it’s to articulate them in exact detail to show that you know precisely where to build a defensible position. Articulating your weaknesses well allows you to talk about what you’re going to do about them.

“Our company, Amazon, is particularly concerned about the fact that customers will want to see higher ticket electronics firsthand before making a buying decision. We believe that retailers such as Best Buy will consistently get customers through their doors first before they elect to make a buying decision with us.

Therefore, we have to create guarantees on the lowest price that will entice customers to view at Best Buy but purchase on Amazon because the savings are so significant.”

In this example, we aren’t sugar-coating the concern. We’re highlighting the fact that Amazon will lose customers to Best Buy, but they’re working toward a strategy to curb that customer loss with a lower price. An investor reading that narrative would feel this is a balanced assessment of a weakness coupled with a viable counter-strategy.

Similar to the Strengths section, a great way to present this is with a few declarative scenarios where you’re most concerned, so that your readers get the gist. Thereafter, craft a more detailed description of why and how those weaknesses and threats are important.

Sooner or later (hopefully later) your competition is going to pose some serious threats to your business. In some cases, it may not even be your competition directly. It could be looming legal issues or governance that you’ll have to contend with.

Similar to weaknesses, founders get nervous about being bold about threats. They think “That will scare investors away!” when in fact being up front about how you identify and mitigate threats is the best way to make investors confident about potential issues.

Your best bet is to get in front of your threats first. Similar to your strengths, list the most painful threats first, then explain how you plan on using some Judo-style moves to take them down.

“The biggest single threat to our Amazon business is the lack of control we have around delivery costs. If UPS and FedEx decide to increase costs exponentially, our ability to deliver products at a total price lower than retailers will evaporate.

To combat this, we will negotiate very long term deals with major carriers. We will offer them an exclusivity on volume in exchange for a predetermined rate plan that we can predict for five to 10 years at a time.”

In this example, we’re pointing out (before our investors can) that an increase in delivery costs for a business that relies on delivery is a big deal. But we’re immediately supporting that concern by providing a credible mechanism to offset the threat.

Investors may still have concerns around what the mechanics of the deals with delivery providers may be, but at least now the conversation is about deal mechanics, not whether delivery as a whole will destroy Amazon.

Think of your presentation of threats in two columns — Threat and Mitigation. List your threat in detail, then list your mitigation strategy. In the best case scenario, you can show investors that you’ve thought of threats they haven’t even considered and already have a plan of attack waiting. It’s that type of presentation that builds much-needed trust during the formative stages of that relationship.

Competitors

Your competition can be represented as both “categories of competition” as well as “actual competition.”

Categories of Competition allow you to create groups of competitors that may share some of the same attributes such as “online retailers” or an emotional category such as “People who hate to shop in stores.” You may in fact have many different categories that you compete with and then a few specific competitors that you’re concerned about in each. The category approach works well if you have tons of competitors; for example, if you were an online retailer.

Action competition is more specific to who you can count on your fingers. In this case, you want to be very detailed about who they are, what about them is particularly challenging, and what you plan to do about it.

In each case, the goal is to be very clear about why each competitor has strengths and weaknesses that you’re concerned about. You’re better off listing fewer competitors that are a more direct threat and showing that you know how to compete than creating a giant list of every person that has a website that’s tangentially related to you.

The competitive analysis is just one part of your market analysis. Check out our guides  to each section of your market analysis in order to create a document that will blow your investors away.

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• Write Your Business Plan | Part 1 Overview Video
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• How to Raise Money With Your Business Plan
• Customers and Investors Don't Want Products. They Want Solutions.
• Write Your Business Plan | Part 4 Overview Video
• 5 Essential Elements of Your Industry Trends Plan
• How to Identify and Research Your Competition
• Who Is Your Ideal Customer? 4 Questions to Ask Yourself.
• How to Identify Market Trends in Your Business Plan
• How to Define Your Product and Set Your Prices
• How to Determine the Barriers to Entry for Your Business
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• Write Your Business Plan | Part 5 Overview Video
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How to Identify and Research Your Competition Emphasizing your competitive advantage is an essential part of any business plan.

By Eric Butow Oct 27, 2023

Key Takeaways

• Why competitive analysis matters
• Questions to ask about your industry
• How to find similar companies

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

This is part 3 / 9 of Write Your Business Plan: Section 4: Marketing Your Business Plan series.

Successful entrepreneurs are renowned for intuitively feeling a market's pulse, project trends before anyone else detects them, and identifying needs that even customers are unaware of. After you are famous, perhaps you can claim a similar psychic connection to the market. But for now, you'll need to reinforce your claims to market insight by presenting solid research in your plan.

Market research aims to understand the reasons consumers will buy your product. It studies consumer behavior, specifically how cultural, societal, and personal factors influence that behavior. For instance, market research aiming to understand consumers who buy in-line skates might study the cultural importance of fitness, the societal acceptability of marketing directed toward children and teens, and the effect of personal influences such as age, occupation, and lifestyle in directing a skate purchase.

Related: 4 Effective Ways To Accomplish This Missing Step That Most Entrepreneurs Overlook

Market research is often split into two varieties: primary and secondary. Primary research studies customers directly, whereas secondary research studies information others have gathered about customers. Primary research might be telephone interviews or online polls with randomly selected target group members. You can also study your own sales records to gather primary research. Secondary research might come from reports on other organizations' websites or blogs about the industry.

Conducting market research provides answers to those unknown elements. It will greatly reduce risk as you start your business. It will help you understand your competitive position and the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. And it will improve your marketing and sales process."

Related: You Need Consumer Insights To Ensure The Success Of Your Business. Here Are Five Ways To Find Them.

Questions to Ask About Your Industry

To start preparing your industry analysis and outlook, dig up the following facts about your field:

• What is your total industry-wide sales volume? In dollars? In units?
• What are the trends in sales volume within your industry?
• Who are the major players and your key competitors? What are they like?
• What does it take to compete? What are the barriers to entry?
• What technological trends affect your industry?
• What are the main modes of marketing?
• How does government regulation affect the industry?
• In what ways are changing consumer tastes affecting your industry?
• What are recent demographic trends affecting the industry?
• How sensitive is the industry to seasons and economic cycles?
• What are key financial measures in your industry (average profit margins, sales commissions, etc.)?

Related: 5 Essential Elements of Your Industry Trends Plan

How to Find Similar Companies

Find a close match when looking at comparable businesses (and their data). For comparative purposes, consider:

• Companies of relative size.
• Companies serving the same geographic area could be global if you plan to be a web-based business.
• Companies with a similar ownership structure. If you are two partners, look for businesses run by a couple of partners rather than an advisory board of twelve.
• Relatively new companies. While you can learn from long-standing businesses, they may be successful today because of their twenty-five-year business history and reputation.

You will want to use the data you have gathered to determine how much business you could do and to figure out how you will fit into and adapt to the marketplace.

Related: How to Make Your Business Stand Out

How To Do Original Research

One limitation of in-house market information is that it may not include exactly what you're looking for. For instance, if you'd like to consider offering consumers financing for their purchases, it's hard to tell how they'd like it since you don't already offer it.

You can get around this limitation by conducting original research—interviewing customers who enter your store, for example, or counting cars that pass the intersection where you plan to open a new location—and combining it with existing data. Follow these steps to spending your market research dollars wisely:

Determine what you need to know about your market. The more focused the research, the more valuable it will be.

• Prioritize the results of the first step. You can't research everything, so concentrate on the information that will give you the best (or quickest) payback.
• Review less expensive research alternatives. Small Business Development Centers and the Small Business Administration can help you develop customer surveys. Your trade association will have good secondary research. Be creative.
• Estimate the cost of performing the research yourself. Keep in mind that with the internet you should not have to spend a ton of money. If you're considering hiring a consultant or a researcher, remember this is your dream, these are your goals, and this is your business.
• Don't pay for what you don't need.

Related: The One Simple Task That Will Help Your Startup Succeed

More in Write Your Business Plan

Section 1: the foundation of a business plan, section 2: putting your business plan to work, section 3: selling your product and team, section 4: marketing your business plan, section 5: organizing operations and finances, section 6: getting your business plan to investors.

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Blog Marketing How to Create a Competitor Analysis Report (with Examples)

How to Create a Competitor Analysis Report (with Examples)

Written by: Midori Nediger Nov 09, 2023

Your business will always have competition.

And if you don’t know what that competition is up to, you could be missing out on huge opportunities.

That’s why a competitive analysis is so crucial to your success as a business. It gives you the tools to quickly adapt to any changes in the competitive landscape and potentially capitalize on industry trends that your competitors haven’t even noticed.

So let’s get some basics out of the way…

What is a competitive analysis report?

A competitive analysis report outlines the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors compared to those of your own business.

Typically, a competitive analysis report will contain:

• A description of your business’s target market
• Details about the features of your product compared to your competitors’ products
• A breakdown of current and projected market share, sales, and revenues
• Comparisons of pricing models
• An analysis of marketing strategy and social media strategy
• A description of customer ratings of the features of each competitor

Whether you’re a startup trying to break into the marketplace , a consultant trying to get results for your client, or an established company looking to cement your foothold against the competition, a well-researched competitive analysis gives you the tools you need to make strategic decisions.

Your competitive analysis should inform your marketing plan , your business plan , your consultant report and every part of your high-level business strategy.

But how do you actually create a competitive analysis report?

How to make competitor analysis report :

• Start with a competitor overview
• Conduct market research to uncover customer personas and industry trends
• Compare product features in a feature comparison matrix
• Summarize your strengths and weaknesses with a SWOT analysis
• Show where you fit in the competitive landscape
• Use a competitor analysis template for a professional look and feel

The level of detail you include in each section of your competitive analysis report will vary depending on the stage of your business growth and your goals. For example, a startup might create a report that focuses on market research, while an established business might dive into detail on an emerging competitor.

But let’s talk about the parts of a competitive analysis that every report should include.

1. Start with a competitor overview

A strong report shows exactly what a company must out-compete to be successful.

Meaning you must audit any product or service that currently solves the problem your business is trying to solve for customers and write a quick profile for each competitor.

Like the template below, each competitor profile might include:

• The company’s revenue and market share
• The company’s size and information about their management team
• A broad description of the company’s strengths and weaknesses
• An overview of how the company is perceived by customers

This overview will help your readers get a big-picture view of the market landscape.

2. Conduct market research to uncover customer personas and industry trends

You can’t create a competitive analysis report without doing extensive market research , which is all about gathering information to understand your customers, identify opportunities to grow, and recognize trends in the industry.

This research can help you put together the customer personas that will guide business and marketing decisions down the line, and allow you to plan for any shifts that might disrupt the marketplace.

You can conduct primary market research, with:

• Customer interviews
• Online surveys or questionnaires
• In-person focus groups
• Purchasing a competitor product to study packaging and delivery experience

Or secondary market research, by:

• Reading company records
• Examining the current economic conditions
• Researching relevant technological developments

When assembling your market research you may just want provide a high-level summary of the industry trends, like this competitor analysis example shows:

Or you may want to dive into detail on the demographics of a particular consumer segment, like this:

But if you’re a consultant or advisor struggling to get buy-in from skeptical stakeholders, the report below would be ideal. Covering everything from market forecasts to consumer profiles, it can help you get clients and decision-makers on board.

3. Compare product features in a feature comparison matrix

The feature comparison is arguably the most important part of the competitive analysis. Breaking down your product and your competitors’ products feature-by-feature will allow you to see what really sets everyone apart.

In addition to specific product features, here are some attributes that you might include in a feature comparison matrix:

• Product quality
• Number of features
• Ease of use
• Customer support
• Brand/style/image

The most common format for a features analysis is a simple matrix with you and your competitors along one side and all of the relevant features along the other. You can check off or rate how you perform in each area:

But these tables can get pretty long. Another approach is to focus on the things that provide the most value to the user, like in this competitor analysis example from Mint. It only includes ease of use, costs, and benefits:

If you want to visualize your comparisons in an engaging way, you could use a comparison infographic . 

Great resources for this section of your competitive analysis report are product rating sites like Capterra and G2Crowd . They’ll give you an unbiased view of your company and your competitors.

And as with any market research, it’s critical that you speak with real people who use your product and your competitors’ products. That’s the only way to get an accurate picture of how your target customers rate the competition .

4. Summarize your strengths and weaknesses in a SWOT analysis

When you’re conducting research for your competitive analysis, it’s going to be messy. You’ll have a lot of data and it’ll be hard for an outsider to understand.

That’s what makes the SWOT analysis so essential.

A SWOT analysis is a framework for evaluating your competitive position by listing your key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

It can act like a short summary of the rest of your competitive analysis report for anyone who doesn’t have time to dig into the details.

Click the template above to enter our online SWOT analysis maker tool. Customize the template to your liking–no design no-how required.

Here are some questions to kickstart your SWOT analysis:

• Strengths: What are we doing really well (in terms of marketing, products, sales, branding, technology, etc.)?
• Weaknesses: What are we struggling with? What’s holding us back?
• Opportunities: What’s the weakest area for our biggest competitor? Are there any gaps in the market that aren’t current being addressed? What has recently changed in our business or the market?
• Threats: What is our biggest competitor doing much better than us? What new products/features are they working on? What problems aren’t we currently addressing?

In your report, you could arrange your SWOT analysis in a simple list, but it can be helpful to use color-coded quadrants, like the competitor analysis example below. Note how each quadrant is paired with an icon:

5. Show where you fit in the competitive landscape

After summarizing your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, it’s time to look at the bigger picture. It’s time to figure out where every major competitor currently fits into the competitive landscape.

The most popular way of doing this is to identify the two dimensions that are most important for being competitive in your industry and plot them on a matrix, like this one from the Boston Consulting Group:

And this one from G2 Crowd (which looks at market presence and customer satisfaction):

You may want to focus on where you fit in the market landscape based on your own biggest strengths and weaknesses, or the biggest threats and opportunities you identified in the SWOT analysis.

Or, it may be enough just to summarize in words the features and benefits that set your apart from your competitors (which is a great way to end your report on a high note).

Competitor analysis examples for strategic planning

Let’s delve into some competitor analysis examples that can empower your organization to navigate the market effectively.

1. Competitor analysis example for marketing specialists

Imagine this: You are a Marketing Specialist and your goal is to establish a strong online presence and attract a diverse user base. However, you face stiff competition from established players in the market. Here are some things you should look into when doing your competitor analysis:

Competitor analysis focus:

• SEO strategies: Analyze competitors’ websites to understand their SEO strategies. Identify high-ranking keywords , backlink strategies, and content optimization techniques . Alternatively, if you’re running a local business, you might want to analyze and scrape Google Maps listings to better assess how companies are optimizing Google My Business to generate leads.
• Social media engagement: Examine competitors’ social media presence. Evaluate the type of content that garners engagement, the frequency of posts, and audience interactions.
• Online advertising: Investigate competitors’ online advertising campaigns. Are they leveraging Google Ads, social media ads, or other platforms? Assess the messaging, visuals, and targeting criteria.
• Content marketing: Scrutinize competitors’ content marketing efforts. Identify the topics that resonate with their audience, the formats they use (blogs, videos, infographics), and the platforms they prioritize.

Here’s a SWOT analysis template to help you get started:

2. Competitor analysis example for SME business development managers

Imagine this: As the business development manager for a medium sized start up, you are tasked with expanding the client base. The market is crowded with similar service providers, and differentiation is key. When doing your competitor analysis report, look into:

• Client testimonials and case studies: Explore competitors’ websites for client testimonials and case studies. Identify success stories and areas where clients express satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
• Service offerings: Analyze the range of services offered by competitors. Identify gaps in their offerings or areas where you can provide additional value to clients.
• Pricing models: Investigate competitors’ pricing structures. Are they offering packages, subscription models, or customized solutions? Determine whether there’s room for a more competitive pricing strategy .
• Partnerships and collaborations: Explore potential partnerships or collaborations that competitors have formed. This can provide insights into untapped markets or innovative service delivery methods.

Here’s a competitor analysis comparison chart template that you could use:

3. Competitor analysis example for product managers

Imagine this: You are a Product Manager for a consumer electronics company tasked with improving your company’s products and services. The market is buzzing with innovation, and staying ahead requires a deep understanding of competitor products.

• Feature comparison: Conduct a detailed feature-by-feature comparison of your product with competitors. Identify unique features that set your product apart and areas where you can enhance or differentiate.
• User experience (UX): Use a  UX research tool  to evaluate the user experience of competitors’ products. Analyze customer reviews, app ratings, and usability feedback to understand pain points and areas for improvement.
• Technological advancements: Investigate the technological capabilities of competitors. Are they integrating AI, IoT, or other cutting-edge technologies? Assess whether there are emerging technologies you can leverage.
• Product lifecycle management: Examine competitors’ product release cycles. Identify patterns in their product launches and assess whether there are opportunities for strategic timing or gap exploitation.

To help you get started, use this competitive analysis report template to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the product or service

How to present a competitor analysis

Presenting a competitor analysis effectively involves organizing and communicating information about your competitors in a clear and concise manner. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to present a competitor analysis:

• Introduction: Start with a brief introduction to set the stage. Outline the purpose of the competitor analysis and its significance in the current market context.
• Competitor identification: Clearly list and identify the main competitors. Include both direct and indirect competitors. Briefly describe each competitor’s core business and market presence.
• Key metrics and performance: Present key metrics and performance indicators for each competitor. This may include market share, revenue, growth rate, and any other relevant quantitative data.
• SWOT analysis: Conduct a concise SWOT analysis for each competitor. Summarize their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Use a simple visual representation if possible.
• Market positioning: Discuss how each competitor is positioned in the market. This could include their target audience, unique selling propositions, and any specific market niches they occupy. Also, focus on finding keywords , as your competitor’s targeted keywords are the main source of information on their online market performance.
• Strategic moves: Highlight recent strategic moves made by your competitors. This could include product launches, partnerships, mergers, acquisitions, or changes in pricing strategy. Discuss how these moves impact the competitive landscape.
• Recommendations and implications: Based on the analysis, provide recommendations and implications for your company. Identify opportunities to capitalize on competitors’ weaknesses and outline potential threats that need to be addressed. Discuss any adjustments to your own strategy that may be necessary in response to the competitive landscape.

3 tips to improve your competitive analysis report design

How you design your competitive analysis report can have a significant impact on your business success. The right report design can inspire stakeholders to take action based on your findings, while a mediocre design may reflect poorly on your hard work.

Here are a few report design best practices to keep in mind when designing your competitive analysis report:

• Start with a competitive analysis report template
• Keep core design elements like colors and fonts consistent
• Use visuals to summarize important information and keep your audience engaged

1. Start with a competitor analysis template

The quickest way to lose the confidence of your stakeholders is to present a messy, amateur report design. Besides distracting from the content of the report, it might even put your credibility at risk.

Starting with a pre-designed competitor analysis template, like the one below, takes almost all of the design work out of the mix so you can focus on the content (while still impressing your stakeholders).

And if you’re a consultant competing for a project, a pre-designed template may just give you the edge you need to land that client.

Click on any of our templates; you’ll enter our online drag and drop report maker tool. No design know-how required.

2. Keep core design elements like colors and fonts consistent

If you take a look at the competitor analysis template below, you might notice that the designer has switched up the layout from page to page, but many of the other design elements are kept consistent.

That consistency helps the report design feel cohesive while making it easier for readers to quickly skim for key pieces of information.

Here are a few quick guidelines for keeping important design elements consistent:

• Use the same color scheme throughout your report (with one highlight color to draw attention to key takeaways and important numbers)
• Use the same font styles for your headers, subheaders, and body text (with no more than 2-3 font styles per report)
• Use the same style of visuals throughout your report (like flat icons or illustrated icons… but not both)

3. Use visuals to summarize important information and keep your audience engaged

The challenge with a competitive analysis report is that you collect heaps of background research, and you have to condense it into a brief report that your client will actually read.

And written summaries will only get you so far.

Visuals like charts and tables are a much better way to communicate a lot of research quickly and concisely, as seen in the market research summary below.

Even lists can be made more engaging and informative by spacing out list items and giving more emphasis to headers:

The more you can replace descriptive paragraphs and long lists with thoughtful visuals, the more your readers will thank you.

A competitive analysis will allow you to think up effective strategies to battle your competition and establish yourself in your target market.

And a report that communicates the findings of your competitive analysis will ensure stakeholders are on board and in the know.

Now that you know how to design a competitive analysis report, you’re ready to get started:

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Home > Business Plan > Competition in a Business Plan

Competition in a Business Plan

… there is competition in the target market …

Who is the Competition?

By carrying out a competitor analysis a business will be able to identify its own strengths and weaknesses, and produce its own strategy. For example a review of competitor products and prices will enable a business to set a realistic market price for its own products. The competition section of the business plan aims to show who you are competing with, and why the benefits your product provides to customers are better then those of the competition; why customers will choose your product over your competitors.

• Who are our competitors?
• What are the competitors main products and services?
• What threats does the competitor pose to our business?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of our competitors?
• What are the objectives in the market place of the competitors?
• What strategies are the competitors using?
• What is the competitors market share?
• What market segments do the competitors operate in?
• What do customers think of the competition?
• What does the trade think of the competitor?
• What makes their product good?
• Why do customers buy their product?
• What problems do customers have with the product?
• What is the competitors financial strength?
• What resources do the competition have available?

The focus is on how well the customer benefits and needs are satisfied compared to competitors, and not on how the features of the product compare. For example, key customer benefits might include affordability, can be purchased online, or ease of use, but not a technical feature list.

Competition Presentation in the Business Plan

The business plan competitor section can be presented in a number of formats including a competitor matrix, but an informative way of presenting is using Harvey balls . Harvey balls allow you to grade each customer benefit from zero to four, and to show a comparison of these benefits to your main competitor products. The competitors might be individual identified companies, or a generic competitor such as ‘fast food restaurants’.

In the example below, the key benefits of the product are compared against three main competitors. Each row represents a key benefit to the customer, the first column represents your business, and the remaining three columns each represent a chosen competitor.

The investor will want to understand that your product has the potential to take a major share of the chosen target market by being shown that it is sufficiently competitive for a number of key customer benefits.

This is part of the financial projections and Contents of a Business Plan Guide , a series of posts on what each section of a simple business plan should include. The next post in this series will deal with the competitive advantages the business has in the chosen target market.

About the Author

Chartered accountant Michael Brown is the founder and CEO of Plan Projections. He has worked as an accountant and consultant for more than 25 years and has built financial models for all types of industries. He has been the CFO or controller of both small and medium sized companies and has run small businesses of his own. He has been a manager and an auditor with Deloitte, a big 4 accountancy firm, and holds a degree from Loughborough University.

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How to Write a Competitor Analysis for a Business Plan (with AI in 2023)

Competitor analysis is a critical component of any business plan. It helps you understand the landscape of your industry, identify opportunities for growth and differentiation, and craft strategies that take advantage of your competitors' weaknesses.

Here's a step-by-step guide on how to conduct a comprehensive competitor analysis, including how to leverage AI tools like Bizway to make the process more efficient and effective.

Step-by-Step Guide to Performing a Competitor Analysis

1. identify your competitors.

Understanding your competitive landscape begins with pinpointing who your direct and indirect competitors are.

Points to Consider

• Direct Competitors : Those who offer similar products/services in the same market.
• Indirect Competitors : Businesses targeting your customer base with different offerings.
• Utilize market research and customer feedback to list competitors.
• Identify geographical considerations - local, regional, or global competitors.

2. Analyze Their Products/Services

A thorough examination of competitors’ offerings unveils potential areas for differentiation and enhancement in your product/service line.

• Feature comparisons.
• Pricing structures.
• Unique Selling Propositions (USPs).
• Adopt a customer-centric approach to understand how consumers perceive competitors’ offerings.
• Identify gaps in their product/service lines that you could explore.

3. Assess Their Marketing Strategy

Understanding competitors’ marketing approaches aids in crafting a superior, data-driven marketing strategy.

• Target audience.
• Key messages and value propositions.
• Channel effectiveness and presence.
• Use social listening tools to gauge their social media effectiveness.
• Analyze the SEO performance of competitors’ websites.

4. Examine Their Sales Strategy

Investigating sales channels and tactics employed by competitors reveals market penetration strategies and potential areas for diversification.

• Distribution channels.
• Pricing and sales tactics.
• Customer relationship management.
• Secret shop to observe sales tactics and customer experiences.
• Review customer feedback on their purchasing experience.

5. Analyze Their Strengths and Weaknesses

Identifying what competitors excel in and fall short on enables strategic decision-making in exploiting market opportunities.

• Operational efficiency.
• Customer service quality.
• Brand reputation and loyalty.
• Conduct a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) for each competitor.
• Leverage customer reviews and testimonials to gauge reputation.

Using AI for Competitor Analysis

Automated data collection.

AI automates the harvesting of data from myriad sources, ensuring robust research while saving time.

• Use AI tools to scrape and aggregate data from competitors' websites, social media, and customer review platforms.
• Ensure the data is categorized and stored systematically for easy analysis.

Real-Time Updates

AI provides a competitive edge by monitoring and reporting real-time updates on competitor activities.

• Set up AI monitoring for specific competitor activity: product launches, PR releases, or marketing campaigns.
• Ensure to leverage real-time data to inform swift strategic adjustments.

Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics via AI deciphers patterns and anticipates future competitor moves, positioning your business proactively.

• Leverage AI to analyze historical data for predicting future trends.
• Utilize these insights to anticipate and formulate preemptive strategies.

Using Bizway for Competitor Analysis and Business Planning

One such AI tool that can revolutionize your competitor analysis process is Bizway . Bizway is an AI-powered business planning and research app that can help you research your competitors and write your entire competitor analysis with just a few clicks. Moreover, Bizway can assist you in writing your entire business plan, saving you time and providing you with expert-level planning documents.

With Bizway, you can automate the process of generating clear, concise planning docs across all areas of business, from an SEO Content Plan to User Onboarding Plan. It also helps fill knowledge gaps in areas of business you're not well-versed in.

So, whether you're a solopreneur, a small business owner, or an aspiring entrepreneur still in school, Bizway is the AI assistant you need to take your business planning to the next level.

Gerrard + Bizway AI Assistant

Start your business journey, today.

Create your personalized 50-step business roadmap in under 1 minute.⚡

Bizway is brought to you by Landmark Labs Ltd.

©2024 Bizway Labs

Knock knock. Who's there? 2022.

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The Ultimate Guide to Competitive Analysis + Competitor Analysis Example Template

What is a competitive analysis?

What are the benefits of doing a competitive analysis, a step by step guide to conducting a competitor analysis, a competitive analysis template, tips and tricks for successful competitor analysis, competitive analysis - the takeaways and faqs.

Knowing your own products like the back of your hand is essential for getting your e-commerce store going. But stacking your offering up against the competition is what will keep it growing!

This is where competitor analysis comes in. It’s a handy competitive research tool that can help you effectively carve out an ever larger share of your market.

Competitor analysis can benefit you in multiple situations:

• Maybe you’re launching a new product and need to know how to present it,
• Maybe your brand is feeling stale and you need ideas (a great way to re-engage existing customers),
• Maybe you noticed your sales growth slowing, or even stopping completely,
• Or maybe you simply have some downtime in your marketing schedule and want to sharpen up your message and ads in relation to your competitors. 

Whatever stage your business is at, analysing your competitors can help you find new opportunities and keep on top of industry trends.

Evaluating your competition might seem like a daunting task, but we’ve prepared a detailed guide to all things competitor analysis. 

In this blog, you’ll find:

• A definition of what competitor analysis is;
• A breakdown of its main benefits ;
• A step-by-step guide to conducting a competitor analysis yourself;
• A free competitive analysis template you can use for your e-commerce store;
• And some tips and tricks for getting your competitor analysis right.

Ready to beat the competition? Then read on!

A competitive analysis - also known as a competitor analysis - is a process of evaluating what your current and potential competitors are up to . It involves looking at what the businesses you compete with are doing, and, more importantly, deciding on what you can do in response. 

Competitor analysis is about understanding your competition by evaluating:

• their products, 
• their marketing and sales strategies, 
• their customers and audience, 
• and their strengths and weaknesses.

So it’s less about just comparing prices and more about understanding the businesses operating in your niche, and what advantages you might have over them.

Analysing competitors is a crucial step in your business planning process. Ultimately, you’re going head-to-head with your competition to win the loyalty of the exact same customer base. Competitor analysis is a tool that reveals critical insights that can help you come out on top in this race.

The biggest benefit is that you will understand how to turbo-charge your business’ growth. That’s because you will know how to compete in the market. A clear competitive analysis will make any business decision you take more informed and more likely to succeed.

Here’s a breakdown of some of the main benefits of doing a competitive analysis:

Finding a competitive edge

While market research helps you find customers for your business, competitor analysis helps you make your business unique. A customer’s first question will be: Why do I need this product? But their second will be: Why do I need your version of this product?  Focusing attention on your current and potential competition will help zero-in on specific product features, pricing strategies, and marketing approaches that can distinguish your brand from its competitors and persuade customers to pick you.

Learning from others 

Competitive analysis helps you understand the businesses competing for your potential customers. This is key to figuring out where you can improve. By analysing your competitors, you can not only learn their best practices, but also avoid some of the mistakes that they’ve made.

Managing threats and reducing risk for your business

Even if your sales are rocketing right now, how can you be sure that this will continue?  Understanding your competitive landscape well makes you better prepared to face any unpleasant surprises . Competitor analysis allows you to identify your competitive vulnerabilities and keep an eye on potential threats. Scoping out where customers may go if they don’t choose you is a good way of making sure it doesn’t happen.

You can do it too.

Capitalizing on opportunities

Is there a product or niche that is on fire right now, and could propel your store from five figure earnings to six figure? Well, there might be, but without competitive analysis there’s a good chance you’ll miss it. Competitive analysis makes it easier to spot gaps in the market and jump on these opportunities while they’re still hot. 

Planning ahead

Many businesses find themselves wrong-footed, not because they did something wrong, but because they failed to anticipate changes in the market. A competitor analysis will help you identify the strategies your competition uses to provide value to your target buyers. By looking at these strategies, you can better recognise how you can enhance your own long-term business strategy, or find alternative strategies to attract additional customers. Just imagine you’re selling DVDs online right before Netflix launched its streaming service! If you’re analysing the competition, you’d understand that your business needs to change (maybe a pivot to movie merchandise instead). 

The more you can understand the businesses that directly and indirectly compete with you, the better you’re equipped for success. In essence, competitor analysis is a way to ensure you are one step ahead of your competition.

So, with no further ado, let’s see how it’s done.

It’s easy to burn hours of time on competitor analysis. To save you some time, we have set out a structured step-by-step guide that should help keep you focused on what to look for and where.

Let’s get into the how-to’s of a competitive analysis in 6 easy steps:

Step 1: Create a spreadsheet for collecting the data

The first step is the least interesting, but it’s important. You’ll need to be ultra organized when conducting your analysis, so get a spreadsheet set up. Make sure everyone working on the analysis can access it.

And in terms of the content of the spreadsheet, we’ll leave that for later in this blog, when we present your very own template for conducting a competitive analysis. 

Step 2: Identify your competitors

It’s time to find the competition. Of course, good ol’ Google will be a valuable tool here. But one important point to remember is that you should always add modifiers to your search terms. These are additional words or phrases that will dramatically narrow down the number of results for a search, and help you find your direct competitors more easily. 

For example, imagine you’re a US-based e-commerce business that sells monthly subscriptions of organic gourmet coffee. If you simply search for “Gourmet Coffee”, you return over 375 million results. And the first is a blog about coffee, not a competitor. 

Now add the modifiers “Monthly subscription” + “US” + “organic” and you get an 87.5% reduction in search results. Plus, all the results are for e-commerce coffee stores. Bingo!

Once you have tried the most obvious modifiers, make some variations like “best”, “cheapest”, and “fastest delivery”. And don’t forget Google tries to work out the intention of a search too (eg. whether you’re trying to buy something, research something, compare something etc.) So adding “buy” or “for sale” into your search enquiry might also help with honing in on your competitors. 

Step 3 - Define your competitors by type 

Once you have a list of competitors, it’s time to organise them a bit. The key categorization is to divide them into direct competitors and indirect competitors.

Direct competitors

These are e-commerce stores that are offering the same products (or very similar) to the same audience (or very similar) as you are. So, to go back to our coffee subscription example, any other e-commerce stores selling coffee as a subscription to customers in the same region and demographic would be a direct competitor.

Indirect competitors

These are e-commerce stores that are selling a similar product to you, but with some crucial differences. For example, you might be at opposite ends in terms of pricing (luxury vs low end). For our subscription gourmet coffee store, indirect competitors would either be those selling cheap, lower quality coffee, or those not selling as a subscription. You could even consider competitors selling a different product that solves a similar problem. For example, if you’re selling vitamin supplements, you may consider standard pharmaceuticals to be your competitors.

A different approach for different competitor types

It’s important to be careful when categorising your competitors into direct or indirect, because the way you respond to these types of competitors will differ. 

In the case of direct competitors, you might need to change specific parts of your product or service in response to what you discover about your competitors. Furthermore, when you’re targeting the same audience you’ll need to focus on specific benefits (like free shipping) that you can offer over your direct competitors.

But with indirect competitors, you might think more about persuasion. How can I get a customer who buys low-end coffee interested in trying gourmet coffee instead? So you’re going to focus less on the specifics, and more on the general benefit you have to offer.

Step 4 - Analyse each competitor’s value proposition and positioning

Now things are starting to sound a bit “advertising agency.” But don’t worry, fancy terms like “value proposition” and “positioning” describe really simple ideas. Here’s what they mean:

• Value proposition - a summary of the main reasons to choose a product or brand.
• Positioning - where a brand fits within the overall market.

Analysing these elements are important, because they give you a lot of information about the  company’s product, service, and audience. And this gives you an opportunity to stand out. 

For example, take a look at this value proposition from Apple: Looks brand new. Feels like home.

Apple is emphasising an important feature to their customers - the fact that its new iPhone looks modern, but will feel familiar for Apple users. 

Understanding this gives you important information about who Apple is targeting - existing Apple users looking for an iPhone upgrade. So, if you’re Samsung you can come up with a distinctive and different message. Something like this:

By creating a different value proposition - one focused on discovery - you stand out and offer something different. If you’re thinking about your own value proposition and how to make it stand out, check out this list of 9 great value proposition examples to get you inspired.

How to find your competitor’s value proposition and market positioning

While companies communicate a lot about their value proposition and market positioning, it can sometimes take a little bit of digging to find it. Here are some tips you can follow to make the process easier. 

Go to the about us section of your competitor’s website then:

• Note what they say their mission is. For example, if they say their mission is to “Make gourmet accessible to more people”, this probably means they’re cheap and are targeting the low end of the market. If they say they want to “Provide lovers of coffee with unique tasting opportunities,” this means they’re highly personalised (and therefore probably expensive).
• See if your competitor compares itself directly to other products on the market. For example, Four Sigmatic spell out on their website exactly where they see themselves in the health food market.

You should also take a look at their social media activity. This can give you a good snapshot of their size and activity, and help you identify their target audience too.

Step 5 - Compile this data in one place

Add all the data you’ve gathered into your spreadsheet. You could create a scoring system to make it easier to analyse and help you pick out key trends.

Step 6 - Find your competitive advantage

Here comes the toughest part. But this is the whole point of the exercise - to find a way to present yourself that will give you an advantage over your competitors. 

Start with your direct competitors. Look through your data to see if there are any gaps in the market positions. Are there loads of competitors in the low-end side of your market, but very few in the luxury segment. Or perhaps everyone is focusing on free shipping, but very little is mentioned about flexible returns policies. 

Once you have looked through each competitor, you’ll need to turn the attention onto your e-commerce store. Ask yourself:

• What are our biggest strengths as a team?
• What do we do badly or find challenging?
• What do we enjoy and value most?

For example, let’s say you realise that you are highly creative but not so great at organisation. Then it would make sense for you to focus on building a brand people love by being active on social media, rather than thinking about logistics-intensive benefits like flexible returns.

Combine the two (your analysis of your direct competitors and your reflection on yourself) to find the perfect competitive advantage for you. 

For example, take a look at this brilliant ad by Atoms shoes.

Here is a brand that knows exactly what its competitive advantage is: 

creating comfortable, long-lasting shoes made from high quality materials.

They even spell out exactly what they’re not. 

This level of clarity is what you’re aiming for with your competitive analysis. 

Finally, once you have identified your competitive advantage, take a look at your secondary competitors. You might spot gaps in the market, or think of ways to convince some of their audience to try your product.

You’ve got a clear idea of the steps you’ll need to follow for your competitive analysis. Now, as promised, here’s a handy template you can use. It’s designed for general use for e-commerce stores, but of course you can adapt or tailor to your specific niche.

We’ve filled in the answers for our fictional gourmet coffee store to give you an idea of how to answer each section.

OK, just time for 5 handy tips to you should follow when you’re carrying out your competitor analysis.

• Analyse web traffic and organic performance: If organic traffic is a key component of your marketing strategy, look for organic competitors by seeing whose content performs well for specific search queries. You’ll need to look at the content they create and see how you can offer more value. You can also use tools like ahrefs or semrush to get more granular. Useful metrics to look for are number of referring domains and volume of organic search traffic . 
• Check out the ads your competitors are running: If you rely mainly on ads for your marketing, look at your competitors ads to see how they engage their audience and sell their product. Here’s a step by step guide on how to find your competitor’s ads.
• Know when enough is enough: Although it’s always sensible to do competitor analysis, avoid obsessively researching every possible competitor. It’s easy to take research to the point where you get stuck in ‘analysis paralysis’ and never get round to actually taking action so your business grows. You could try limiting competition analysis to once every 3 or 6 months, and be tight on how long you give yourself for the process.
• Take everything you see from your competitors with a pinch of salt: Don’t assume that everything a competitor does actually works well. When looking at a competitor’s glossy website, it’s easy to think everything is perfect. But few businesses get everything 100% right for their customers. And many businesses do things that aren’t always ideal or profitable, but due to other pressures they never get round to changing. Even if it is right for them, it might not be right for you. 
• Repeat, repeat, repeat at regular intervals: Competitive analysis isn’t a one-and-done exercise. While the frequency of analysis can differ depending on the industry, we recommend conducting a competitor analysis anytime from once a quarter to once a year. This gives you time to react to your discoveries and benchmark your progress.

Competitive analysis is an important tool in maintaining your store’s continuous growth. By keeping tabs on what the other e-commerce stores in your niche are doing, you can:

• Constantly improve and clarify your value proposition so you really stand out in the market,
• Identify opportunities in the market that can bring in big bucks,
• Manage potential risks i n the future so that your business is secure for the long term.

And to carry out a successful competitive analysis, just adapt the competitor analysis example template in this article to fit your specific area of business. Then follow these 6 steps:

• Create a competitive analysis spreadsheet based on the template in this article,
• Identify your competitors (don’t forget to use a range of modifiers when you’re searching for them on Google)
• Define your competitors by type (separate them into direct and indirect competitors)
• Analyse your competitors’ value propositions and market positioning (for analysing your competitors’ social media activity, take a look at this guide to spying on your competitors’ ads in Instagram and Facebook.)
• Compile all your data in your competitive analysis spreadsheet
• Find your competitive advantage (after all, this is the main benefit of conducting a competitive analysis).

So, you’ve got the competitive analysis template. And you’ve got the steps for completing your competitive analysis. Now all you need is schedule some time to put this strategy into action (we recommend once every 3-6 months, and annually at the very least). Then get ready to propel your business’ growth and secure its long-term future.

What is competitive analysis?

A competitive analysis - also known as a competitor analysis - is like an audit. You gather information on who your competitors are and what they’re doing. This usually includes looking at their products, their marketing and sales strategies, their customers and audience, and the strengths and weaknesses of their business.

How does it work?

There are 6 keys steps to follow when conducting your competitive analysis: create a spreadsheet (based on the template in this article), identify your competitors, categorise them into direct and indirect competitors, analyse them, compile your data, and then identify your competitive advantage.

Why is it worth doing?

There are 3 main reasons to conduct a competitive analysis. The first, and most important, is to identify your own competitive advantages. See what you can offer that your competitors can’t and use this to attract new customers. Secondly, a competitive analysis will help you identify new opportunities and gaps in the market. Thirdly, it will enable you to secure your business’ future by being ready for changes and shifts in the market.

• What is Competitive Advantage + Competitive Advantage Examples to Boost Sales

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31+ SAMPLE Competition Business Plan in PDF | MS Word

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1. low cost provider strategies, 2. broad differentiation strategies, 3. focused low-cost and differentiation strategies, 4. best-cost provider strategies, step 1: create a concise summary , step 2: develop market analysis and sales/marketing strategy, step 3: include a competitor analysis, step 4: review and execute the competitive business plan, share this post on your network, you may also like these articles.

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The 20 Best Business Plan Competitions to Get Funding

Business plan competitions can provide valuable feedback on your business idea or startup business plan template , in addition to providing an opportunity for funding for your business. This article will discuss what business planning competitions are, how to find them, and list the 20 most important business planning competitions.

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What is a Business Plan Competition?

How do i find business plan competitions, 20 popular business plan competitions, tips for winning business plan competitions, other helpful business plan articles & templates.

A business plan competition is a contest between startup, early-stage, and/or growing businesses. The goal of the business plan competition is for participants to develop and submit an original idea or complete their existing business plan based on specific guidelines provided by the organization running the contest.

Companies are judged according to set criteria including creativity, feasibility, execution, and the quality of your business plan.

A quick Google search will lead you to several websites that list business planning competitions. 

Each site has a different way of organizing the business planning competitions it lists, so you’ll need to spend some time looking through each website to find opportunities that are relevant for your type of business or industry.

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Below we’ve highlighted 20 of these popular competitions, the requirements and how to find additional information. The following list is not exhaustive; however, these popular competitions are great places to start if you’re looking for a business competition.

Rice Business Plan Competition

The Rice University Business Plan Competition is designed to help collegiate entrepreneurs by offering a real-world platform on which to present their businesses to investors, receive coaching, network with the entrepreneurial ecosystem, fine-tune their entrepreneurship plan, and learn what it takes to launch a successful business.

Who is Eligible?

Initial eligibility requirements include teams and/or entrepreneurs that:

• are student-driven, student-created and/or student-managed
• include at least two current student founders or management team members, and at least one is a current graduate degree-seeking student
• are from a college or university anywhere in the world
• have not raised more than $250,000 in equity capital
• have not generated revenue of more than $100,000 in any 12-month period
• are seeking funding or capital
• have a potentially viable investment opportunity

You can find additional  eligibility information on their website.

Where is the Competition Held?

The Rice Business Plan Competition is hosted in Houston, TX at Rice University, the Jones Graduate School of Business.

What Can You Win?

In 2021, $1.6 Million in investment, cash prizes, and in-kind prizes was awarded to the teams competing.

This two-part milestone grant funding program and pitch competition is designed to assist students with measurable goals in launching their enterprises.

Teams must be made up of at least one student from an institution of higher education in Utah and fulfill all of the following requirements:

• The founding student must be registered for a minimum of nine (9) credit hours during the semester they are participating. The credit hours must be taken as a matriculated, admitted, and degree-seeking student.
• A representative from your team must engage in each stage of Get Seeded (application process, pre-pitch, and final pitch)
• There are no restrictions regarding other team members; however, we suggest building a balanced team with a strong combination of finance, marketing, engineering, and technology skills.
• The funds awarded must be used to advance the idea.

The business plan competition will be hosted in Salt Lake City, UT at the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute at the University of Utah.

There are two grants opportunities:

• Microgrant up to $500
• Seed Grant for $501 – $1,500

Global Student Entrepreneur Awards

The Global Student Entrepreneur Awards is a worldwide business plan competition for students from all majors. The GSEA aims to empower talented young people from around the world, inspire them to create and shape business ventures, encourage entrepreneurship in higher education, and support the next generation of global leaders.

• You must be enrolled for the current academic year in a university/college as an undergraduate or graduate student at the time of application. Full-time enrollment is not required; part-time enrollment is acceptable.
• You must be the owner, founder, or controlling shareholder of your student business. Each company can be represented by only one owner/co-founder – studentpreneur.
• Your student business must have been in operation for at least six consecutive months prior to the application.
• Your business must have generated US $500 or received US $1000 in investments at the time of application.
• You should not have been one of the final round competitors from any previous year’s competition.
• The age cap for participation is 30 years of age.

You can find additional   eligibility information on their website.

Regional competitions are held in various locations worldwide over several months throughout the school year. The top four teams then compete for cash prizes during finals week at the Goldman Sachs headquarters in New York City.

At the Global Finals, students compete for a total prize package of $50,000 in cash and first place receives $25,000. All travel and lodging expenses are also covered. Second place gets US $10,000, while third place earns US $5,000. Additional prizes are handed out at the Global Finals for Social Impact, Innovation, and Lessons from the Edge.

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The collegiate entrepreneurs organization business plan competition.

The Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization Business Plan Competition (COEBPC) exists to help early-stage entrepreneurs develop their business skills, build entrepreneurial networks, and learn more about how they can transform ideas into reality. It also offers cash prizes to reward entrepreneurship, provide an opportunity for recognition of top student entrepreneurs around the world, and provide unique opportunities for networking.

To compete, you must:

• Be a currently enrolled student at an accredited institution
• Have a viable business concept or be the creator of an existing business that generates revenue.

If you are among the top three finalists of the business plan competition and successfully receive prize money, you will be required to submit a class schedule under your name for the current academic semester. Failure to do so will result in the forfeit of the prize money.

All competitions are held online. The finalist will receive a trip to the International Career Development Conference, where they have an opportunity to win additional prizes from CEO’s sponsors.

• First Place – $7,000
• Second Place – $5,000
• Third Place – $3,000
• People’s Choice Award – Collegiate Entrepreneur of the Year – $600

MIT 100k Business Plan Competition and Expo

The MIT 100K was created in 2010 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to foster entrepreneurship and innovation on campus and around the world. Consists of three distinct and increasingly intensive competitions throughout the school year: PITCH, ACCELERATE, and LAUNCH. 

• Submissions may be entered by individuals or teams.
• Each team may enter one idea.
• Each team must have at least one currently registered MIT student; if you are submitting as an individual, you must be a currently registered MIT student.
• Entries must be the original work of entrants.
• Teams must disclose any funding already received at the time of registration.

Hosted in Cambridge, MA at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology beginning in October through May of each academic year.

Top finalists will have a chance to pitch their ideas to a panel of judges at a live event for the chance to win the $5,000 Grand Prize or the $2,000 Audience Choice Award.

20 Finalists are paired with industry-specific business professionals for mentorship and business planning and a $1,000 budget for marketing and/or business development expenses.

The 10 Top Finalists participate in the Showcase and compete for the $10,000 Audience Choice Award while the 3 Top Finalists automatically advance to LAUNCH semi-finals.

The grand prize winner receives a cash prize of $100,000 and the runner-up receives $25,000.

Florida Atlantic University (FAU) Business Plan Competition

The FAU business plan competition is open to all undergraduate and graduate student entrepreneurs. The competition covers topics in the areas of information technology, entrepreneurship, finance, marketing, operations management, etc.

All undergraduate and graduate students are eligible to participate.

The business plan competition will be held at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida.

• First prize: $5,000 cash
• Second prize: $500 cash

Network of International Business Schools (NIBS) Business Plan Competition

The Network of International Business Schools (NIBS) Business Plan Competition is designed to offer an opportunity to develop your business plan with the guidance of industry experts. It provides the opportunity for you to compete against fellow entrepreneurs and explore big ideas.

• Participants must be the legal age to enter into contracts in the country of residence.
• Participants may not be employed by an organization other than their own company or business that they are launching for this competition.
• The plan should be for a new business, not an acquisition of another company.

The Network of International Business Schools (NIBS) Business Plan Competition is held in the USA.

There is a cash prize for first, second, and third place. There is also a potential for a business incubator opportunity, which would provide facilities and assistance to the winners of the competition.

Washington State University Business Plan Competition

The Washington State University Business Plan Competition has been serving students since 1979. The competition is a great opportunity for someone who is looking to get their business off the ground by gaining invaluable knowledge of running a successful business. It offers a wide range of topics and competition styles.

• Any college undergraduate, graduate, or professional degree-seeking student at Washington State University
• The company must be an early-stage venture with less than $250,000 in annual gross sales revenue.

The Washington State University Business Plan Competition is held in the Associated Students Inc. Building on the Washington State University campus which is located in Pullman, Washington.

There are a wide variety of prizes that could be won at the Washington State University Business Plan Competition. This is because the business plan competition has been serving students for over 30 years and as such, they have offered more than one type of competition. The common prize though is $1,000 which is awarded to the winner of each class. There are also awards for those who come in second place, third place, etc.

Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan Competition

The Milken-Penn GSE Education Business Plan Competition is one of the most well-known competitions in the country. They have partnered with many prestigious institutions to provide funding, mentorship, and expertise for the competition.

Education ventures with innovative solutions to educational inequity from around the world are encouraged to apply, especially those ventures founded by and serving individuals from marginalized and historically underrepresented communities.

We encourage applicants working in every conceivable educational setting–from early childhood through corporate and adult training. We also welcome both nonprofit and for-profit submissions.

The competition is held at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

All finalists receive $1,000 in cash and $5,000 in Amazon Web Services promotional credits.

Next Founders Business Plan Competition

Next Founders is a competition geared towards innovative startups with a social impact, looking to transform society by addressing key global human needs. The competition inspires and identifies energetic, optimistic entrepreneurs who are committed to achieving their vision.

Next Founders is for Canadian business owners of scalable, high-growth ventures.

Next Founders is held at the University of Toronto.

You could win up to $25,000 CAD in cash funding for your new business.

Hatch Pitch Competition

The Hatch Pitch competition is one of the most prestigious business competitions in the US. The winners of the Hatch Pitch Competition are given access to mentorship courses, discounted office space with all amenities included, incubators for startups, tailored education programs, financial counseling & more.

The competition is for companies with a business idea.

• The company’s product/service must have launched within the past 2 years, or be launched within 6 months after the Hatch Pitch event.
• Founders must retain some portion of ownership in the company.
• Received less than $5 million in funding from 3rd party investors.
• The presenter must actively participate in Hatch Pitch coaching.

The Hatch Pitch Competition is located at the Entrepreneur Space in Dallas.

The grand prize for this business plan competition is access to resources like incubators and mentorships that could prove invaluable in bringing your startup company to the next level.

TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield

The Startup Battlefield is a business plan competition that is sponsored by TechCrunch.  It awards the winner $50,000. There are two different rounds to this competition:

• First Round – 15 companies from all of the applicants that submitted their business plans for this round.
• Second Round – Two finalist companies compete against each other at TechCrunch Disrupt NY’s main stage.

At the time of the application process, companies must have a functional prototype to demo to the selection committee. In selecting final contestants, we will give preference to companies that launch some part of their product or business for the first time to the public and press through our competition. Companies that are in closed beta, private beta, limited release or generally have been flying under the radar are eligible. Hardware companies can have completed crowdfunding but those funds should have been directed to an earlier product prototype. Existing companies launching new feature sets do not qualify.

TechCrunch’s Startup Battlefield is held at different locations.

The Startup Battlefield rewards the winner with $50,000. In addition, the two runner-ups get a prize of $5,000 each.

New Venture Challenge

New Venture Challenge is a competition hosted by the University of Chicago. There are 3 main categories that will be judged:

• Innovative Concept – Arguably the most important category, this focuses on uniqueness, originality, and suitability.
• Market Fit/Business Model – Are you solving an actual problem for your target market? Does your project have the potential for profit?
• Presentation – Did you make a compelling, impactful presentation? Did you clearly communicate your goals and vision to potential investors?

You can find  eligibility information on their website.

The New Venture Challenge competition is held in Chicago, IL.

Finalists are awarded:

• First Place: $50,000 equity investment and access to industry mentors and other resources.
• Second place: $25,000 equity investment and access to industry mentors and other resources.
• Third place: $15,000 equity investment and access to industry mentors and other resources.

New Venture Championship

The New Venture Championship is hosted by the University of Oregon and has been since 1987. The championship brings new ventures and innovative business ideas to life and the competition offers plan writing as a service to those who need it.

The University of Oregon New Venture Championship is open to university student teams with 2-5 members that have at least one graduate student involved with their venture. Students should be enrolled in a degree program or have finished their studies in the current academic year.

The New Venture Championship hosted by the University of Oregon is held in Eugene, Oregon.

Every business plan has a chance of winning a cash prize from $3,000 to $25,000 and additional benefits like plan coaching and office space rental.

Climatech & Energy Prize @ MIT

The Climatech & Energy Prize @ MIT is a competition that focuses on companies that are involved in the area of energy, environment, and climate change.

• Participants must be a team of two or more people.
• At least 50% of formal team members identified in the competition submission documentation must be enrolled as half-time or full-time college or university students.

The Climatech & Energy Prize @ MIT is held in Cambridge, MA.

The grand prize winner receives $100,000 and other winners may receive other monetary prizes.

Baylor Business New Venture Competition

This competition has been offered by Baylor for the last 20 years. It is designed to help aspiring entrepreneurs refine business ideas, and also gain valuable insights from judges and other entrepreneurs.

Must be a current undergraduate student at Baylor University or McLennan Community College.

The Baylor Business New Venture competition will be held at the Baylor University, Waco, TX.

The grand prize winner will receive $6,000. There are also other prizes given out to the other finalists in each category which are worth $1,500 – $2,000.

13th IOT/WT Innovation World Cup

The 13th IOT/WT Innovation World Cup was organized by the 13th IOT/WT Innovation World Cup Association. It was organized to provide a platform for innovators from all over the world to showcase their innovative ideas and projects. The competition aimed at drawing the attention of investors, venture capitalists, and potential business partners to meet with representatives from different companies and organizations in order to foster innovation.

The revolutionary Internet of Things and Wearable Technologies solutions from developers, innovative startups, scale-ups, SMEs, and researchers across the world are invited to participate. Eight different categories are available: Industrial, City, Home, Agriculture, Sports, Lifestyle, and Transport.

Only those submissions that have a functional prototype/proof of concept will advance in the competition, mere ideas will not be considered. 

The competition is held in Cleveland, Ohio also an important center for innovation and cutting-edge technology.

Win prizes worth over $500,000, connect with leading tech companies, speed up your development with advice from tech experts, join international conferences as a speaker or exhibitor, and become part of the worldwide IoT/WT Innovation World Cup® network. 

The U.Pitch is a competition that gives you a chance to share your idea and for the community of budding entrepreneurs, startup founders, CEOs, and venture capitalists to invest in your enterprise. It also provides mentoring by experts in the field.

• Currently enrolled in an undergraduate or graduate program
• Applicants may compete with either an idea OR business currently in operation
• Applicants must be 30 years of age or under

The U.Pitch is held in San Francisco, California.

Enter to win a part of the $10,000 prize pool.

At the core of CodeLaunch is an annual seed accelerator competition between individuals and groups who have software technology startup ideas.

If your startup has raised money, your product is stable, you have customers, and revenue, you are probably not a fit for CodeLaunch.

CodeLaunch is based in St. Louis, Missouri. 

The “winner” may be eligible for more seed capital and business services from some additional vendors.

New York StartUP! Business Plan Competition

The New York StartUP! is a competition sponsored by the New York Public Library to help entrepreneurs from around the world to develop their business ideas.

• You must live in Manhattan, The Bronx, or Staten Island
• Your business must be in Manhattan, The Bronx, or Staten Island
• All companies must have a big idea or business model in the startup phase and have earned less than $10,000

The New York StartUP! competition is held in New York, NY.

Two winners are chosen: 

•  Grand Prize – $15,000  
•  Runner-up – $7,500  

First, determine if the competition is worth your time and money to participate.

• What is the prize money?
• Who will be on the judging panel?
• Will there be any costs associated with entering and/or presenting at the competition (e.g., travel and lodging expenses)?

Once you’ve determined the worth of the competition, then shift to focusing on the details of the competition itself.

• What are the rules of the competition?
• Are there any disqualifying factors?
• How will you be judged during the different parts of the competition?

After conducting this research, it’s best to formulate an idea or product that appeals to the judges and is something they can really get behind. Make sure you thoroughly understand the rules and what is expected from your final product. Once you know what is expected from you, you’ll be able to refine and practice your pitch to help you move through the stages of the competition.

These competitions are a fantastic method to get new business owners thinking about business possibilities, writing business plans, and dominating the competition. These contests may assist you in gaining important feedback on your business concept or plan as well as potential monetary prizes to help your business get off the ground.  

How to Finish Your Business Plan in 1 Day!

Don’t you wish there was a faster, easier way to finish your business plan?

With Growthink’s Ultimate Business Plan Template you can finish your plan in just 8 hours or less!

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How to Win Any Business Plan Competition, From a 4-Time Winner

Alison alvarez has gotten really good at understanding what judges want. here are her top tips..

Alison Alvarez is a master of the business plan competition. 

Her expertise grew out of necessity. When she and her co-founder, Tomer Borenstein, founded BlastPoint in 2016, they knew they had a winning business idea : Leverage artificial intelligence to help public utilities, banks, and automotive companies analyze their massive customer lists. In their estimation, most data tools weren't built for salespeople or others who might really benefit from them. Plus, the pair of computer scientists knew their stuff--both had graduate degrees from Carnegie Mellon; Alvarez had also earned her MBA at the University's Tepper School of Business. 

But neither had financial resources. "Often you hear about the 'friends and family round,'" comments Alvarez, referring to founders bootstrapping their companies by way of benevolent relatives. She wondered, "If you don't have those, what do you do?" 

Alvarez and Borenstein decided to bootstrap the Pittsburgh-based BlastPoint through competitions and grants . Alvarez viewed it as something akin to scholarship applications, which she had grown expert at as a student. She funded both her undergraduate and graduate educations with scholarships. 

The strategy worked. In the past four years, the company has won four such competitions, ranging in size from 2017's UpPrize, which came with a $160,000 reward, all the way to a small $2,000 payoff in the GSV Labs AI Pitch competition in 2020. 

"We got really good at that as a way to get capital for basic things," says Alvarez. "Like, we need a printer, let's go to a quick pitch competition," referencing how she entered and won TiE  Pittsburgh . She notes an additional benefit of her business-competition funding strategy: "Investors show up." At that point, she says, "it becomes less about the money, more about expanding our network," which is key, especially when Covid-19 has made socializing normally so hard. 

Here, Alvarez shares a few the tricks she uses to prevail. 

Ask to see the judging guidelines.

Competitions often try to make life easy for their judges, who tend to be high profile, busy, and donating their time, by providing them with scoring rubrics. These are handy guides that explain how to weight companies' merits in various categories as they evaluate one application after the next.

It never hurts to ask to see these judges' guidelines ahead of time, suggests Alvarez. "Usually if you ask, they'll just give it to you."

"You should know what rules you're being held to," she says. "And if you do that you'll know how to tailor your presentation to address the whole rubric."

What's more, she says, "they'll also remember your name as someone who had the initiative to reach out." 

Small, real stories beat big, vague ideas.

Before entering UpPrize, the social innovation challenge funded by BNY Mellon, Alvarez and Borenstein used an example of a nearby watershed whose director wanted to understand how to balance the needs both rich and poor constituents equitably. Armed with real, quantitative calculations of the benefits--and a portrait of the watershed's executive director--Alvarez had a real-world example to look to. She then explained how her company had the potential to help both nonprofits and companies save money and increase equity, across the nation at scale. 

"If you can get just one person to say you actually saved them $100 or a $1,000, it has a lot more impact than if you just said, 'We have the  potential  to save people millions of dollars,'" she says. 

Find a memorable hook.

Even if you have real results and check all the boxes of a winning pitch, there's still a chance your application can get lost in the shuffle. 

"Know that you are part of a really big group of people. You might be lucky if judges remember one thing about you," she says. "But know that you have control over what that one thing is." 

Put something powerful and memorable in the beginning, middle, and end of your presentation--you never know whether judges might get distracted at some point as you're talking, so hedge your bets. BlastPoint's founders summarized their mission by highlighting the importance of data: "Data enables you to see where you're going and where you've been; without it, you're operating without vision." 

Boil your business down to one sentence.

On stage, Alvarez makes all the complex data analysis BlastPoint performs sound clear and easy to remember: "It's big data for human brains," she says. The idea is to make your company easy to talk about during judge's deliberations. 

"If someone walks away from what you're doing, can they tell somebody about your business in a sentence?" she says. "And if they can't, you need to rethink what you're doing." 

A refreshed look at leadership from the desk of CEO and chief content officer Stephanie Mehta

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How to Win a Business Plan Competition

8 min. read

Updated May 10, 2024

Have you considered business plan competitions as part of your startup strategy? I’ve personally seen startups get more than a million dollars in investment at the annual Rice University Business Plan Competition, held every April. I’ve also seen startups raise tens and even hundreds of thousands of dollars of grant money at competitions hosted by the University of Oregon and the University of Texas. And I’ve read about startups getting good money from outside universities, in competitions held by business development organizations and businesses. And this is now worldwide, not just in the U.S. 

As I write this, I just did a web search for business plan competitions, and came up with dozens of them coming up in 2022. I judged a University of Oregon business plan competition just last month. 

I’ve never entered a business plan competition, but I’ve been judging them since 1997. I’ve done multiple stints at several of the majors. And I’ve developed some pointers and tips to help you win your next business plan competition. 

• 1. Know the judging guidelines

As business plan competitions have grown and developed, most of them have fine-tuned the details of judging procedures and criteria. For example, many ask judges to choose which entrant is the best investment for outsiders. That’s different from which is the best business or which they would rather own or share in. The key point there is that criterion essentially dismisses good startups that don’t need outside investment to grow. 

I’ve seen startups successfully tailor their plans and pitches to aim at outside investment rather than self funding. That, in my opinion, is the right way to adjust to the specific criteria. 

You should also be aware of judging guidelines governing questions, comments, interruptions of pitches, plan and pitch length, and so forth. Some business plan competitions ask the judges to listen quietly to a pitch, without interrupting. Others encourage judges to interrupt at will, as they would in a real investment pitch. Startups have to know and plan accordingly. 

• 2. Research who you are pitching to

In most of the business plan competitions I’ve seen, judges are a collection of venture capitalists, angel investors, entrepreneurs, and local business leaders. That’s predictable. The organizers of these competitions ask local people to participate, as volunteers, as judges. So they look for people who know the general territory of startups, business plans, pitches, and investment. 

Different judges have different sets of expertise. I’ve seen attorneys, accountants, and medical doctors as judges, along with investors in general. Read their biographies before you finalize your pitch. Know what experience and background they have. This can help a lot as you deliver a pitch and field questions.

• 3. Refine your pitch deck and get feedback

Start with a good deck of slides . Understand what your slide deck is supposed to do: ideally, it’s a collection of useful and/or beautiful images that focus attention on what you are saying, add depth to what you are saying, and sets the structure to what you say. For example, as you discuss the problem your startup solves, you project a beautiful image that illustrates the problem you solve. You want your investors to focus on you and your words, not read words from your slides. Avoid the so-called “death by PowerPoint” meaning the boredom of a speaker reading slide bullet points to a captive audience.   

We have a lot of information for you, on this site, about doing your slide presentation for a business pitch. All of that applies to the pitch component of a business plan competition. That includes How to Create a Pitch Deck , 15 Tips for a Successful Pitch , T he 11 Slides Your Need for a Pitch Deck , and others. 

Practice makes perfect . Trite but true. In my experience, the best pitches are practiced a lot but not memorized. The slide images stand as placeholders to set the flow of topics. They provide visual emphasis. But the speakers use their own words and let it flow differently each time they do it. The best have been over the pitch a lot, with others listening and poking holes where they can. So they have a good guess on what questions might come up, and how they will respond to those questions when they do. You might look at this article on how to get feedback on your pitch . 

• 4. Develop a memorable hook

You have just a few seconds to make that important first impression. Call that a hook. You want judges’ attention from the very beginning. Maybe you tell a story of a real person suffering the problem you want to solve. Ideally, in that case, your first slide is a picture of that problem. Maybe you share the vision of how this will help the world. That can start with an image too. 

Hooks are hard to generalize, but it’s all about getting the judges to care. It’s most often about the problem a startup solves, the size of the need, the importance of the solution. But it might also be the ambitious goals, if you can make the judges care about that. Be creative. Put yourself in the place of an investor, sense business plan competition judges are usually thinking as investors. What makes this exciting to the investor? What’s the best thing to make them care from the beginning. 

• 5. Share any traction

Being able to show actual achieved traction is a huge advantage in a business plan competition. Most competitions invite startups at very early stages, often long before launch or even serious steps towards execution. The startup that already has traction is way ahead of the competition. 

What makes traction depends on your type of business. Maybe it’s proven research, subscribers, customers, distributors, letters of intent, users, and so forth. Generally, there’s nothing stronger than actual paying customers. 

• 6. Show realistic market potential and growth

Don’t ever think that in a business plan competition the biggest market wins. It’s so very much not that simple. Credibility and realism are critical. I’ve seen judges not choose a startup that was going to cure cancer, with a projected market of billions, because they just didn’t believe it. I’ve seen judges routinely reject unbelievable big numbers. 

Yes, of course, bigger is better, but only within that framework of credibility. The method and assumptions and transparency of a projection is very important. The best market projections build from the bottom up, with believable assumptions about drivers: stores, channels, web views, traffic, sales funnels. Numbers should start at the base drivers and build up to the bigger numbers. 

• 7. Prepare relatable stories

Stories are vital to business success and that includes in business plan competition. Your hook is a story. Your problem and solution are a story. How people find and buy that solution is another story. Business planning is in many ways telling stories first and then planning how to make them come true. The stories are vital to your success in a business plan competition. You hint at them in an elevator pitch, tell them in the business pitch, and show them and how they can come true in your business plan. 

• 8. Keep things short and straightforward

Business plan competition judges are busy people. They have a lot of distractions. Boredom is your enemy. Time is the scarcest resource. Keep your pitches moving. Once you lose their attention, it is very hard to get that back. Stay on point. Move it forward fast. 

In a pinch, use your slide deck to help. Click on the next slide. That should move you to the next topic. 

• 9. Prove you are uniquely qualified

Most business plan contest judges are investors and most investors agree that choosing a startup is often more about the jockey than the horse. I’ve often seen judges reject a good plan with a good product and market but an unconvincing team. Show why your team background and qualifications make you uniquely qualified. Usually that means track records, industry experience, related credentials, accomplishments, market knowledge, product knowledge, and commitment. Simply put: why you?  

• 10. Have your business plan prepared to share

Start with the obvious: Make sure you are aware of each business plan competition’s specific requirements for the plan itself. Most of them set down standards for how many pages. Some set just page count while others will distinguish between text pages and pages containing illustrations and/or financial projections. Many business plan contests also specify pagination and details for the executive summary. 

Pay special attention to the summaries. Many judges will read just the summaries well and skim the rest, and then screen and grade plans based mainly on the summary information. Make sure you show the highlights first, and well. What highlights? That depends on your unique plan. For some, technology is most important. For others, it’s the market, or the team experience. You have to know what best sets you apart, and put that where judges will see it. 

In a business plan competition, the quality of presentation in the plan — writing and formatting as well as content — is especially important. Be careful with text, diction, spelling, grammar, and formatting. Don’t let important information get lost in details. You are going to be graded on the quality of the document. 

• Get funding for your business

Finally, maybe as a conclusion, let’s remember that winning a business plan competition is one way to get funding for your business. Winnings can be very helpful. I’ve seen startups come up with hundreds of thousands of dollars and in a couple specific cases (at the Rice Business Plan Competition in Houston) more than a million dollars in angel investment by winning a business plan competition. And I’ve seen startups come up with tens of thousands of dollars as simple grants, no strings attached, as prizes for winning a business plan contest. 

Tim Berry is the founder and chairman of Palo Alto Software , a co-founder of Borland International, and a recognized expert in business planning. He has an MBA from Stanford and degrees with honors from the University of Oregon and the University of Notre Dame. Today, Tim dedicates most of his time to blogging, teaching and evangelizing for business planning.

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