Developing Your Competitive Strategy

In order to develop a competitive strategy for your catering truck, you must first create a competitive analysis. Your analysis should be based on a list of local competitors that you put together. By evaluating your local market and how you can refine your strategic business decisions, you will be better able to identify your direct and indirect competitors that pose a threat to your food trailer business.

It will also assist you in determining the major trends in the marketplace, which will give you the advantage of being able to spot opportunities for differentiating your products.  

To prepare a competitive analysis, you must first name the companies that your food truck is in competition with. Choose two or three direct competitors in this step. Explain what each of your competitors is – is it a food trailer, truck or restaurant? Where do your competitors operate and how well do they provide service to their customers? Then, list out the strengths and weaknesses of each of these competitors.

You must also include your catering truck in the analysis. In this way, you can pinpoint how your catering truck differs from the competition in order to spot gaps in your business and in the market.   Here are a few categories that you should include:  

After you complete this list, it’s time to draw up SWOT analysis. A SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis serves to further analyze the competitive state of the market. Here is what to look for in these categories:  

With all of this newly drawn up information about your competitive market, you can create a plan to hit the market with. First, use your strengths to focus on the needs of the customers. Second, do what you can do to close the gap between these areas where you have a weakness compared to a competitor.

Lastly, continually work at improving your areas of weaknesses so that you can gain more market share and turn larger profits.   All in all, a competitive analysis truly helps you to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your food truck business so that you can maximize your market share in the mobile food industry.

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