Look who is competiting against you

A manufacturer of cricket bat was lamenting over decline on the sale of cricket bats. But strangely his complaint was not against the ruthless competitors. But he was loosing business not to direct competitor but to the football equipment maker. Who were not their competitors at all before? What went wrong in the manufacturer business? It is a clear sign that he was helpless his consumers taste and habits were changing. Activities on which he never can have any control. People are moving toward football rather than cricket. It simple fact that by buying a cricket bat or football people are not buying a good or tool to play. They are more interested in buying an activity. It is not that cricket bat has become less quality products than football. But it is a clear sign of bigger problem of cricket loosing out to football.

In automobile industry, Rolls-Royce and Cadillac are competiting against each other and you can say against a whole lot auto mobile. But from customer point of view, these are goods and means just to fulfill a value in the customer mind. It is just not transportation but a desire to be different and look stylish, which is firing the sales. But when you concentrate on customer satisfaction you competitors stands up from different sort of categories. In this particular case Rolls-Royce can face competition from Rolex, jewellery merchant like D’dmas, a cool vacation on luxury cruise etc.

World is changing so fast and so the customer habits of buying. You never know from where you will have a real competition coming your way. Its time to wake up!