Tag: expert opinion

5 Methods to Better Understand Your Competitors and Your Market
5 Methods to Better Understand Your Competitors and Your Market 

5 Methods to Better Understand Your Competitors and Your Market 

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In an increasingly complex and fast-changing business environment, relying on a vague understanding of the competition is no longer enough. Staying competitive requires a deep understanding of your competitors—their strategies, strengths, weaknesses, intentions, and more. 

A healthy dose of humility is essential: you need to ‘’read’’ your market objectively, which means recognizing that your competitors have different strengths, face different challenges and competitive pressures. 

Here are five strategic approaches to sharpen your competitive insights: 

1. The Transposed SWOT Analysis: Put Yourself in Your Competitor’s Shoes 

A management classic, the SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) is typically used to assess your own company. But applying it from your main competitor’s perspective turns it into a powerful strategic tool. 

Step into your competitor’s shoes and consider: 

  • Strengths: strong brand recognition, operational performance, innovation, competitive advantages. 
  • Weaknesses: outdated tech, overreliance on one market, weak brand image. 
  • Opportunities: emerging trends, untapped markets, favorable regulatory changes. 
  • Threats: economic crises, new regulations, shifting consumer behavior. 

The goal is to remain objective! A transposed SWOT analysis can help you anticipate your competitors’ next moves and adapt your own strategy to avoid being caught off guard.  

2. Porter’s Five Forces: Understanding Industry Pressures 

Michael Porter’s Five Forces framework deepens your market analysis by evaluating five essential dynamics: 

  • Rivalry among existing competitors: market saturation level, offer differentiation 
  • Threat of new entrants: market access, barriers to entering the market 
  • Suppliers’ bargaining power:  dependence to suppliers and supplier concentration 
  • Customers’ bargaining power: Ease for customers to switch from one provider to another 
  • Threat of substitutes: Innovations or emerging alternatives  

This tool helps you see your competitors within their ecosystem and understand how a seemingly strong player may actually be strategically vulnerable. 

👉 Recommended reading: The Five Forces – Harvard Business School 

3. Digital Competitive Intelligence: Continuous Monitoring 

With the growing digitization of business, competitive intelligence has evolved. Today, there’s a wealth of publicly available data useful for strategic analysis: 

  • Website analysis, blogs, white papers, case studies 
  • Social media tracking: engagement, key messaging, ad campaigns 
  • Job postings: clues about future priorities 
  • Patent filings and publications 

Several online tools are available to help in gathering information. An active watch will allow to anticipate product launches, any repositioning and new market entrances. 

4. Active Market Listening: Stay Tuned to What’s Happening 

Active listening is a powerful lever for insight: 

  • Talk to your clients: What do they think of your competitors? How do they perceive your strengths? What trends do they see emerging? 
  • Conduct client interviews or audits: Get an in-depth understanding of their expectations and perceptions  
  • Attend key trade shows and conferences: Speak with clients and competitors, listen to presentations 

These kinds of interactions enrich your understanding and give you a more nuanced view of your competitive landscape. 

5. Competitive Mapping: Visualize to Strategize 

A strategic map helps you position your competitors based on two or three relevant factors (price, perceived quality, innovation, geographic coverage, etc.). 

It allows you to: 

  • Identify strategic whitespaces (‘’blue oceans’’) 
  • Spot saturated areas (“red oceans”) 
  • Understand your competitors’ positioning axes 
  • Reassess your own market position 

It’s also a valuable conversation-starter internally—ask your sales, customer service, or marketing teams for their perspectives. 

👉 Recommended reading: Mapping Your Competitive Position – Harvard Business Review 

Analyze to Act, Collaborate, or Pivot 

Understanding your competitors isn’t just about beating them. It’s about learning, getting inspired, anticipating, partnering—and sometimes pivoting smartly. 

When done well, competitive analysis becomes a strategic skill that supports multiple business functions: innovation, marketing, finance, HR, and even sustainability. 

It should be ongoing, structured, and embedded across the organization. By investing in deeper market understanding, companies can implement more resilient, informed and bold strategies that are aligned with reality.  

How do we approach employee experience in 2025
How do we approach employee experience in 2025

How do we approach employee experience in 2025

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The standardization of teleworking in certain sectors, particularly business services, has shaken up the organizational culture of many companies. In this new culture, some employees can easily feel isolated and gradually lose motivation. In some cases, the bond with the team and the organization can wither away. But you can do something about it. Here are 5 tried-and-tested ways you can help.

1. Be a good listener

Still too few companies in Quebec have implemented a formal employee experience program that includes a structured engagement survey and point-in-time measurements to measure the evolution of the experience over time. The engagement survey is the cornerstone of such a system, as it provides an overview of the employee experience and identifies the key drivers of engagement.

Set yourself the target of carrying out at least one detailed employee experience measurement per year, even if you have to supplement this with a few short follow-ups if needed. Team meetings are also a good way of keeping in touch. Finally, to avoid frustration, think twice before including in your consultations elements for which you are certain there can be no change.

2. Give feedback

Let’s face it, employees are often skeptical about a company’s willingness to implement changes inspired by an engagement survey. Many employees feel more often listened to than heard. In this context, it’s best not to waste any time and tell things as they stand. Take the time to communicate with your employees (including managers) to present the main results of the consultation, indicating which changes will be implemented in the short and medium term, and which ones may take longer. Don’t forget to celebrate your successes! There are surely many aspects of the employee experience that are perceived as strengths.

3. Take targeted action

The engagement survey will have informed you about the main engagement levers and their respective performance. But the real work begins once you’ve analyzed the results. Focus your action plan on the aspects of the experience that matter most to your employees. These aspects generally fall into two broad categories: organizational and managerial.

For organizational aspects, invite employees who show an interest in participating in the experience improvement process to join a working committee. For managerial aspects, make sure that managers are well supported in their efforts to improve the employee experience. Bring together managers with similar issues to work together on concrete solutions.

4. Proceed on a small scale

If you feel that certain changes are of considerable magnitude and carry significant financial risks, you don’t have to implement them across the whole organization at once. First, test the changes in one department or team, then make the necessary observations. If it’s a success across the board, you’ll feel confident about implementing it on a larger scale. If adjustments are required, you can make them before the big roll-out.

5. Measure your progress

Once certain changes have been implemented within the organization, it’s vital to go ask for feedback to measure their impact on employee experience and engagement. That’s when you can see the fruits of your efforts. But beware, the needle doesn’t always move at the pace you’d hoped. You sometimes will have to be patient. By measuring conscientiously, you’ll know exactly what you’re doing. And you’ll have a full picture of employee reactions to the changes you’ve implemented, thus allowing you to better support them.