Market leaders and competition

A quick scan of the press releases issued within an industry and you will notice that multiple companies claim to be the market leaders in their industry. Theoretically, only one company should be able to claim the title of market leader, but in practice, the title can go to a number of companies.

A company can be the market leader in a number of areas:
1. Market share
2. Revenue
3. Unit sales
4. Innovation
5. Customer satisfaction

So which one is more important? All of these measures in their own right can place a company as a market leader, and you should work at becoming the leader in all of them, but innovation and customer satisfaction are the 2 most important measures. These 2 determine all of the others and these are the only 2 that guarantee future success. Without innovative products/services and satisfied customers, a market share and revenue leader can quickly see itself sliding to the bottom of the heap.

Hundreds of businesses go out of business every day, and many of these were the titans of their time. Established companies often get complacent and stop innovating, and they become revenue focused and forget about customer satisfaction. This is where the opportunity lies for small businesses to strike. If you can successfully target these weaknesses then you will have given yourself the best opportunity to rapidly gain market share and revenue. Just don't forget the lesson when you get to the top!