Discussion:
There are many benefits of utilizing the competitor matrix tool as part of the competitor analysis process. One of those benefits is having the ability to understand your competition, their habits or offerings and ways to separate yourself from them and create a competitive edge for yourself and your company. Another benefit is allowing yourself to spot the industry trends through your competitions actions and offer products or services that they are not offering. This helps you create a niche for your company along with market differentiation. Since I am in the technology industry and it is one of my passions, I can think of a few different companies that can I can apply the matrix analysis process to however one company jumps out at me the most. The company that I can apply the matrix to is AT&T. AT&T began as a phone company and over the years through constant refining of their products and offerings, AT&T has positioned itself as a technology giant with services ranging from telephones, wireless services, TV and internet, and most recently home security and control. Consumers tend to prefer less expensive pricing that can be offered by large corporations such as AT&T as well as overall customer service they receive. Since people are familiar with and have grown used to AT&T through utilizing their other products or services, it is not difficult to convert or sell another product to that consumer. So, for AT&T to continue to refine themselves and evolve, they increase their product offerings available to their current customer base to generate more revenues and retain customers with long term plans and products contracts. Take for example, their acquisition of DirectTV, now they can offer satellite to their customer base that would have gone to a competitor, and, they now can offer all of the DirectTV customers internet or phone services. Since they can continuously change themselves and offer what their consumers and other consumers want, they continue to be a force to reckon with as well as source to take advantage. By taking advantage their marketing efforts and allowing smaller companies such as mine to piggyback off their mighty marketing dollars we can attempt to target specific customer bases that are now more familiar with the products and services in the industry.