Competition
Who else is here, how close, and how much of the demand they are already taking.
What it weighs most
Competitor density
35% of the score. The rest is on this page.
01 / The problem
Counting competitors is easy. Knowing whether they matter is not. Twelve weak operators and three strong ones are the same number and completely different markets.
02 / The decisions it serves
Not a report. A decision somebody has to sign.
Each of these is a question your team already asks, and currently answers with a spreadsheet, a phone call and a fortnight.
How crowded is this really
Three or fewer is favourable. More than twelve and you are buying a fight.
Where is the gap
The part that is actually actionable, rather than a map of pins.
Who is weak enough to displace
Because sometimes a saturated market is the right one, on purpose.
03 / What it asks you first
It would rather ask than assume.
The answer changes completely depending on these, so it will not guess at them in order to look fast.
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What kind of business are your competitors, specifically?
04 / The method, in the open
Here is exactly what it weighs. Argue with it.
Most tools will not show you this, because most tools do not have it. These are the weights the playbook really uses.
Competitor density
Market gap
The part that is actually actionable
Competitor quality
Barrier to entry
05 / It is willing to say no
It does not hand you numbers. It gives you a verdict.
An assistant that only ever agrees with you is a mirror, not an analyst. This one holds a line, names the thing that kills the deal, and will tell you to walk away from a site you already like.
The thresholds it holds you to
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Three or fewer direct competitors in the trade area is favourable.
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Four to seven is viable, but you need a reason to exist.
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Eight to twelve is challenging, and needs a strong value proposition to survive.
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More than twelve is saturated. Avoid, unless you are displacing a weak operator on purpose.
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Competitors are searched within three miles in an urban market, ten in a suburban or rural one.
06 / Why not just ask an AI
A fluent answer and a defensible one are not the same thing.
Every model will answer a location question now, and most of the answers sound right. Ask twice and you get two of them. Ask where the number came from and the room goes quiet.
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It searches by category, so it counts the competitors who actually take your customer rather than every business nearby.
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It adjusts the radius to the market. Three miles in a city and ten in a rural one are the same question, and a fixed radius answers neither.
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It weights the market gap above competitor quality, because the gap is the thing you can act on.
07 / What it runs on, and what you get
The data underneath
Licensed and authoritative, and named in the output, so the number keeps its source when it travels.
- Esri GeoEnrichment
- Esri Places
- Your own layers
What you walk out with
A scored assessment against every factor above, on the live map, with the method beside it.
The method it used and the vintage of every number travel with it, so it still holds up when somebody asks you why in six months.
How an answer travels08 / It pairs with
Nobody makes one decision in isolation. Most teams run this alongside two or three of these.
Run Competition on something you already decided. See if it agrees with you.
The honest test of a method is whether it reaches the conclusion your best analyst already reached, and tells you plainly when it does not.
Twenty minutes, and you can argue with the weights.