Case Study on Competitor Analysis

For us it’s a financial exercise, not a marketing one. Most competitor analysis is an afternoon spent scrolling through a rival’s website and Instagram. We do the opposite — we read their actual numbers, the ones they file with the government, to judge whether what they’re doing is sustainable. The aim is to tell you what’s really happening beneath the noise.

What’s public on the surface tells you what a competitor is doing, not whether they can afford to keep doing it. A rival running permanent discounts may be buying market share at a loss they can absorb and you can’t — or they may have a genuine cost advantage. Those are two completely different situations, and only their numbers tell you which one you’re facing.

If they are a Private Limited company or an LLP, they are legally required to file annual financial statements and returns with the Ministry of Corporate Affairs. Those filings are public records. We can lawfully see their balance sheet, profit and loss, borrowings, charges on their assets, shareholding and directors — enough to form a real view of their financial health. (If a competitor is a proprietorship or an ordinary partnership, they don’t file public accounts, so we rely on other signals instead — GST behaviour, channel and supplier intelligence, and so on.)

Yes. Company and LLP filings are deliberately public; anyone can obtain them for a nominal fee. We use only information that is lawfully and publicly available — never anything confidential or improperly obtained. That’s both an ethical line and a professional obligation we take seriously as Chartered Accountants.

Often, no — and saying so clearly is usually the most valuable thing we can do. Matching a funded rival’s prices can mean copying losses they’re equipped to absorb and you aren’t. Before you cut a single rupee, it’s worth knowing whether their pricing reflects a real cost advantage or simply investor money being spent to win shelf space. That answer decides whether you should fight on price at all, or compete somewhere smarter.

Read together, a competitor’s filings usually show whether they are profitable or burning cash, how heavily they are borrowed, whether their growth is funded by sales or by fresh capital, and how durable their current pricing really is. The point isn’t to collect facts — it’s to work out which of their moves you should worry about and which you can safely ignore.

Both — and the second half is the one people forget. Once we’ve read the competitor, we turn the same lens inward, onto your own profitability channel by channel and product by product. New competition often exposes weaknesses that were already there. Those are usually within your control to fix, which the competitor is not.

Especially for you. Large companies have teams that do this routinely; a smaller, owner-run business tends to react on instinct because the information feels out of reach. It isn’t. The same public filings are available whatever your size — and for a smaller business, one clear-eyed read can prevent a single expensive, panicked decision.

Sometimes. Just as often, the honest answer is that taking them on head-to-head isn’t the right goal, and we’ll show you why in the numbers. The more useful outcome is usually a short list of things to fix in your own business — which products and channels actually make money, where you’re quietly subsidising a loss, and where your genuine advantage lies. Understanding a rival well enough to stop chasing them is often worth more than out-spending them.

The usual triggers are a new or aggressive competitor appearing, a major pricing decision, moving into a new channel or market, or preparing to raise funding or approach a bank. It’s also sensible to do this periodically rather than only in a crisis — when you still have the time to act calmly.

Yes. Investors and lenders want to see that you understand your competitive position in financial terms, not just a claim that you’re “better.” Benchmarking your margins, costs and growth against real filed numbers from your sector makes your case considerably stronger.

Usually just the names of the competitors you’re concerned about and a short conversation about what’s worrying you — the bulk of the work is then ours. Timelines depend on how many rivals and how much depth you want, but a focused look at one or two competitors is typically a quick engagement. We’ll always agree the scope and the outcome you’re after before we begin.