The importance of understanding your competition.

Who is our competition?
It is not uncommon to feel “in the dark” when it comes to understanding our competition in the 3PL marketplace. The change in our selling approach from freight to solutions has created a major change in our competition. Studying your competitors is one of the most important processes of approaching an opportunity. You can’t compete effectively with a new customer if you don’t know what’s going on in the market – specifically what your competition is doing.

Ten things to learn about your competition:
1. Are they public or private? If they’re public, how are they doing, are they ahead of or behind the market?
2. How big are they? Compared to SEKO? Is this good or bad for your customer?
3. What is their value proposition?
4. Who are their current customers?
5. Who are their key executives? Can you find out about their background?
6. What do they say are their strengths? How do these compare to SEKO’s?
7. Do they have significant market share? In specific markets, or generally?
8. Do they have specific technologies or key differentiators that make them stand out?
9. What does SEKO do that this particular company does not?
10. Who else at SEKO has sold against this company and what do they know? (Hint: call Tiffany or Kara at corporate and find out if they are included in our competitive analysis)

Throughout the learning process, constantly ask yourself such questions as: How can I minimize this competitor's strengths? How can I maximize this competitor's weaknesses? What could this competitor do to hurt me in the marketplace? Finally, If I was this competitor, what would I do? The answers to these questions will serve as the basis for your competitive tactics and marketing strategy.

How can we help?
Because many of us are less familiar with 3Ps than freight forwarders, the corporate office is creating an in-depth competitive analysis. A competitive analysis provides details about our competitors' products and strategies.

If you have an opportunity and would like some help in researching your competition, feel free to contact the corporate marketing team. They will work to help you to understand your competitors and also build on our competitive analysis.

Places to research your competition:
Armstrong & Associates: http://www.3plogistics.com/
Eye for Transport: http://www.eyefortransport.com/
Supply Chain Brain (formerly Global Logistics and Supply Chain Strategies): www.supplychainbrain.com
ARC – Adrian Gonzalez: http://www.arcweb.com/Industries/Logistics/default.aspx
AMR (Now part of Gartner) – Jeff Taylor: http://www.amrresearch.com/

Thanks,
Tom Madzy