Competitor analysis in marketing and strategic management is an assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and potential competitors. This analysis provides both an offensive and defensive strategic context to identify opportunities and threats. Profiling coalesces all of the relevant sources of competitor analysis into one framework in the support of efficient and effective strategy formulation, implementation, monitoring and adjustment.
Competitor analysis is an essential component of corporate strategy. It is argued that most firms do not conduct this type of analysis systematically enough. Instead, many enterprises operate on what is called “informal impressions, conjectures, and intuition gained through the titbits of information about competitors every manager continually receives.” As a result, traditional environmental scanning places many firms at risk of dangerous competitive blind spots due to a lack of robust competitor analysis
SCENARIO OF INDIAN TWO WHEELER MARKET
The Indian two-wheeler (2W) industry recorded sales volumes of 13.4 million units in 2011-12, a growth of 14.0% over the previous year. In a year wherein growth in other automobile segments particularly, passenger vehicle (PV) and medium & heavy commercial vehicle (M&HCV), slowed down to single digits - marred by demand slowdown due to northward movement of inflation, fuel prices and interest rates - the 14% growth recorded by the 2W industry remained steady. However, the momentum in the 2W industry’s volume growth too has been losing steam lately as evident from the relatively lower volume growth of 11.0% recorded in H2, 2011-12 (YoY) against a growth of 17.1% recorded in H1, 2011-12 (YoY). The deceleration in growth is largely attributable to the motorcycles segment which grew at a much lower rate of 7.8% (YoY) in H2, 2011-12 vis-à-vis 16.4% in H1, 2011-12; even as the scooters segment continued to post 20%+ (YoY)