Who Is Your Competition?

By Neil S. Kohrn

The question sounds simple:

“Without naming a specific company or person, identify as many competitors to this business as possible.”

Take a moment before reading further. How would you answer?

As part of a due diligence program tailored to each engagement, Mr. Kohrn may ask this question of board members, executives, managers, and others throughout an organization. Everyone receives the same question and the same restriction.

Each person answers independently. Their responses are then compared.

He offers no explanation unless someone specifically asks.

That is where the exercise becomes revealing.

Some people begin answering immediately, then stop when they realize their response violates the restriction. Others reconsider the question. Some ask for clarification. Others become frustrated. A few may become upset with the question—or the person asking it.

Each response provides something to examine. Frustration alone does not establish that someone lacks knowledge or ability. What matters is how the person proceeds.

Do they revisit the wording? Examine their assumptions? Ask a useful question? Explain their reasoning? Or decide that the exercise cannot be completed under the stated conditions?

Seniority does not remove the difficulty. Someone accustomed to supplying answers may find it uncomfortable to sit with a question they cannot immediately resolve. Someone elsewhere in the organization may approach it from an entirely different direction.

Answering independently matters. In a group, the first response can steer the discussion. A senior executive’s interpretation may influence what others feel comfortable saying. Independent responses allow each person’s reasoning to emerge before those influences take hold.

Comparing the answers in the context of who provided them adds another dimension. What does a board member recognize that a manager overlooks? What does someone working directly with customers understand that never appears in leadership’s answers? Where do perspectives converge, and where do they differ?

Those differences warrant investigation. They may reflect distinct responsibilities, access to different information, or assumptions that have gone unchallenged. Agreement deserves examination too: does it reflect shared understanding or a shared blind spot?

The purpose is to give that reasoning room to develop. Providing an explanation too early would change the exercise. Once someone points toward an answer, the participant is following a direction rather than independently finding one.

Asking for insight is a valid response. Recognizing what is missing and seeking it can demonstrate sound judgment. But there is a difference between requesting information that advances an inquiry and expecting someone else to complete the reasoning.

Business rarely presents a consequential decision with every relevant fact identified, every assumption examined, and every implication explained. People must determine what they know, what they need to learn, and how to obtain it.

That applies in the boardroom as much as anywhere else.

A title brings responsibility. It does not guarantee that the person holding it has considered every dimension of a problem. Experience can help someone recognize a pattern. It can also encourage them to accept a familiar interpretation before examining whether it fits.

The question remains:

Without naming a specific company or person, who—or what—competes with your business?

Here is the insight.

Competition includes anything that can cause a customer to spend their money, time, attention, or resources elsewhere.

A customer may perform the work internally. They may choose a different way to achieve the same result. Another project may consume the available budget. A new technology may eliminate the need. They may postpone the decision—or decide to do nothing.

None of those answers requires a company’s name.

When an overlooked alternative is raised—“What about this?”—a common response is, “That really isn’t a solution.”

That answer is extremely enlightening.

The business may have sound reasons for dismissing the alternative. It may be less effective, incomplete, or unsuitable for the customer’s stated objective. But does the potential customer understand that? Do they agree? Does the difference matter enough to influence their decision?

The business does not get to decide which alternatives a customer considers credible. If the customer believes an alternative will meet their needs, it competes for their decision—and their money.

In many buying decisions, perception becomes reality because it determines what the customer actually does.

Dismissing an alternative does not remove it from consideration. It may simply reveal that the business has misunderstood how the customer makes a choice.

Recognizing this changes the questions that follow. Why would a customer act? What would make another use of their resources more attractive? What makes postponement acceptable? What makes doing nothing preferable to buying?

A list of familiar names cannot answer those questions.

Insight is obtained through observation, questioning, investigation, and reasoning. This exercise begins by asking people to do exactly that—and then examining what their independent answers reveal.