What is your role?
You and Susan now have a detailed sense of the type of customers likely to find Petopia’s service appealing. But customers are only part of the overall dog grooming market landscape. You need to learn just as much about your competition. You’re next going to help investigate Petopia’s competitors and use that information to shape your vision of the business.

Why is this assignment important?
Through your work so far, you’ve described your target market and studied the motivations and needs of your target customer. But does knowing what your target customers want mean that you will be able to rush right in and sell to them? Not necessarily. There could be a competitor already successfully meeting the needs of these customers.

Before you can fully assess the viability of your business idea, you need to learn about your competitors. What needs do they fulfill? Who are their customers? What are their strengths and weaknesses? This knowledge will help you understand whether your target customers are more likely to buy from you or from a competitor and will also help you position and promote your product or service. It will also help to put a spotlight on holes in your competitive strategies, allowing you to capitalize on your competitors’ weaknesses.

How will this assignment work?
In this assignment, you will:

• Review detailed information about Petopia’s competitors and look back at the information you have about dog grooming customers.
• Organize and analyze information about the different dog grooming services in Empire City using an Excel workbook.
• Communicate your thoughts about Petopia’s competitive opportunity to Susan by answering worksheet questions in the course.

What Next: Click What's involved in competitive analysis?