There is always going to be competition between people who sell the same or similar products or services. This means that you are just going to have to fight harder to make sure your product or service is the one that consumers buy and not someone else’s.

One of the best ways you can ensure you have as little competition as possible is to have high barriers. These are usually related to fixed costs or other individual dimensions which aid in making them naturally hard to scale.
 
There are four things you need to remember when it comes to beating the competition other companies offer:

Regulation

They say that markets are the grease that keeps the economy together. If this is true, it could also be said that regulation is the gum that slows it down. However, it is necessary. Intellectual Property Laws have been set in place to protect people who invest in ideas to stop them being stolen before money can be made out of them. Alcohol Licenses are in place to stop nightclubs and off-licenses don’t pop up at every street corner etcetera.

Regulations can be used to raise the barrier of entry. However, be wary that if you invite the government into your industry you don’t always know what the consequences will be.

Reputation

Your business’ reputation is one of the strongest barriers to entry you could build and is primarily within your control. If you make sure your customers are satisfied with your product and/or service every time they approach your business, they are likely to remain loyal.

Technically, marketing is a variable cost, but if you remain constant with your company’s spending, competitors may decide this is a fixed cost of entering that category. This means they will either have to match your marketing pace or make themselves believe they don’t have to. Either of these will strengthen your business’ position.

Regeneration

This entails more than just research and development, but state-of-the-art is a constantly changing thing within every industry. The more quickly you can speed down the innovation curve, the harder, let alone more expensive, it is going to be for your competitors to keep up.

This could mean a new staff scheduling model, faster shipping, new products, a new service or any combination of these things. But you should be sure to invest in these changes continually before someone else can overtake you.

Real Estate

Location is something that’s often forgotten, but extremely important. If the location is wrong, it could make your business suffer. In the Internet Age, this could be just bookmarks, email lists and customer databases. Especially as today, most companies have made some kind of online investment.

No matter what industry you’re in, you want to face as few competitors as possible. So take time to think about these four ‘R’s and how you can use them to better your business.

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