[AI-Driven New Business Creation] Qualiteg's Approach to Competitive Service Research Before Generating Ideas

Hello to everyone visiting the Qualiteg blog. I am Michele. In my work on AI-driven new businesses and marketing, there are certain questions I hear from clients again and again. Through this blog, I would like to offer my own answers to the challenges that anyone considering an AI-based business is likely to face.

When it comes to market research before generating ideas, I frequently hear from clients that they lack the in-house capability to conduct research, or simply cannot find the time.

Today, I would like to explain how you should go about researching competing services.

What Is the Purpose of Competitive Service Research?

Before generating ideas, it is extremely useful to investigate what services other companies offer, at roughly what price, and what kind of business they run. It also allows you to consider the position your own company should take in light of the competitive landscape and what competitors offer. So always research competing services before you start generating ideas.

For Large Companies, Also Check the Potential for M&A

When my client is a large enterprise, I research startups in addition to conducting the usual competitive service research. The reason is that, rather than launching a new service from scratch in-house, forming a business partnership with, or acquiring, a startup that already runs the service can be a much faster way to bring it into your own business.

Startups often have good ideas but face challenges such as limited funding or difficulty expanding their own sales channels, so they are frequently open to business partnerships with large companies. In this step, find out how much funding the competing services have raised and from whom, and do a quick check on the potential for M&A.

Key Questions in Competitive Service Research

The points to check in competitive service research can be broadly divided into the following two.

1. Does the target market and the business appear to be attractive?
2. What are the key points to consider when entering it as a new business?

Let's conduct competitive research in order to find answers to these two questions.

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How to Assess the Attractiveness of the Target Market and Business

From the perspective of market and business attractiveness, for example, to check whether the market is large, look at the market size over the past five years and the number of users of competing services, and compare them with other similar markets.

For market growth potential, in addition to the market growth rate, research the number of new entrants into the industry and the overall growth in the number of users.

For industry profitability, check the typical business models and, while reviewing competitors' investor relations (IR) materials and similar sources, assess the profitability of the business in question.

How to Identify the Key Points for Entering as a New Business

First of all, find out what kind of users the competing services are targeting. Look into the attributes of the target users as well, such as what age group they belong to and roughly how much they pay for the service per year.

Along with this, the most important thing is to research the content of each company's service. Clarify what value each one delivers, what its points of differentiation are, and which user needs it addresses and in what way, and use this as reference information for considering your own strategy.

The more of this information you have, and the greater its volume, the higher the quality of your idea generation will be. So aim to gather and analyze information in enough detail that you could practically work as a salesperson for your competitors.

Thank you very much for reading this column to the end. At Qualiteg, we provide training and consulting on AI technology and on how to plan new businesses. If you are interested, or have a specific request, please feel free to contact us via the inquiry form here.

We also run a popular workshop for those who want to master the steps of new business creation. The training focuses on having each participant think about the business from an executive's point of view, and the content is suitable not only for planning staff but also for their counterparts in engineering, design, and marketing.

We look forward to hearing from you. Please stay tuned for the next column.