Staying Ahead: Keeping a Pulse on the Competition

The Challenge: A respected national sporting goods retailer needed help in staying ahead of their closest competition. As the rival's stores were often located within five miles of their own, our client needed to identify targeted opportunities that would maximize sales at the store level.

Our Solution: In the world of retail sporting goods, it's critical to keep a finger on the pulse of your competition. One of the best ways to do so is by measuring the efficacy of your own sales and training strategies.

To help refine our client's training priorities, we instituted a program of quarterly assessment visits at the stores of their principal competitor. We compared our research results with those the client had amassed, and we were able to redefine key training priorities on an on-going basis. In the process, we ensured that our client would always keep a focus on exceeding customer expectation -- and staying one step ahead of the competition as a result.

How We Did It: Using our knowledge of the retail sector, we matched up several comparable - and competitive - sporting goods chains with our client's stores. This process ensured an accurate and fair comparison at the national, regional, and chain levels. We then designed a customer reporting system that enabled us to analyze data based on our client's goals. The results were translated in actionable items that allowed our client to implement an effective improvement plan that assured their competitiveness in the marketplace.