Every business has competition. Even if you are in the niche market, there can be only a small amount of time until others jump into your market. This is a usual strategy to wait until someone succeeds in the niche market. Being in a competitive environment brings many positive and negative aspects. From the positive side, we have several factors that actually help us succeed and develop better business by perfecting products or services. From the negative side, we have factors that are not allowing us to gain a higher market share because our competition does things to become better as well. Here are several positive and negative factors about being in a competitive environment:

Positive:

· Better product or service development

· Enhanced customer service

· Competitive advantage

· Marketing strategy

· Employee engagement

Negative:

· Tougher to compete

· Competition does the same

· Competition advances (more resources)

· Many players

Competition is one thing that makes it more challenging for any business to survive on the market. Unfortunately, every market has at least several players who are taking out the majority of clients. New businesses have to compete with minimal resources in order to have a chance to become a bigger firm at one point. Company’s growth fully depends on the owner’s ability to strategically rationalize goals and plan out good tactics to achieve them. A good leader must understand the business he is in and needs to understand the competition. It is very important to do competitive market research in order to establish a competitor’s advantages and weaknesses. It is also important to do a competitive analysis of your own business to understand what might be potential threats and opportunities. SWOT analysis might be very helpful in this situation as it defines: strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and treats. The SWOT analysis can be used at any growth stage of the business to rationalize what can be done to strengthen the business. It is important to use competitive research in order to know who you competing against, without knowing you are shooting in the dark.