In the EIC Accelerator proposal template, you are asked once to tackle the state of the art (Section 1 Excellence) and later on in the text to tackle the competitors (Section 2 Impact). In the first instance, the focus is on which other solutions are on the market that are aimed at solving the same problem your product/service is aimed at. Therefore, after having named and briefly described the competing solution, there are four main questions that you should tackle:
1. Availability: Define the degree of availability of this technology in other sectors or domains.
2. Transferability: Define the degree of direct transferability from other sectors to your market.
3. Barriers: Define the main barriers to ensure quick success of the technology in your market
4. Drivers: Define the main drivers that will help to boost this technology in your market
The point of this analysis is to understand your innovation in the context of other solutions tackling the same problem so it is important to be honest if other technologies hold potential to jump into your market or become standard solutions (flag holders).
When instead you are asked to assess your competition, it is time to address companies by name and focus on the following points:
1. Product/service to compare. “Add the names of the commercial product-service you would like to compare”. As the nature of the projects in H2020 can have a wide scope, this field allows comparing not only direct competitive solutions but also alternative solutions that are currently used/developed to solve the same customer needs.
2. Relevance. “How relevant is this solution in their overall portfolio of product?” Despite all the selected products are competing solutions, this fields aims to understand how relevant this product is for the company commercializing it. This relevance can be estimated based on the relative weight of this solution in the overall company turnover or based on the company approach in different markets. I.e. it is not the same to “fight against” products which are the core of the offer of your competitors (and therefore represents a key revenue stream for them) or against products which are one out of x in your competitors portfolio. The appetite from your competitor to counteract with you will be extremely different in both cases.
3. Company name. “Add the names of the companies commercializing each solution”. Although your competence itself is a product or a service, it is very relevant to know who is commercializing it (not only as brand level but also company owner level)
4. Validation status: “Level of validation of this product/service for your market.” (In terms of TRL). In general terms, most competing solutions in this table would be already commercial. However, considering the nature of the projects, it could happen that some of them are still under development (probably even ours, since, we are asking H2020 for funding to take it closer to market).
5. Size: “SME/ midcap/ Large enterprise”. From a market barriers point of view, it makes a different who is your competitor in terms of size for their capacity to react to you of their capacity to counteract to you.
6. Turnover. “From last year if possible.” As in the previous case, it is an indication of the business size of your competence.
7. Market share. “What is the market share of this company for this solution?.” If your competitive scenario calls for a fight in the market share, it is relevant to understand your starting point and which is the logic level in your market to become one of its key players.
8. Funds raised. “How much private funds has this company raise if any?”. Especially for the SME instrument case when your competitors have already raised private funds it is good to know. It can give you two important insights. 1) Is there a strong market opportunity in this field? 2) Is it still a high growth opportunity in your market?
9. Country. “Headquarters location of the company.” Considering the nature of H2020, identifying also third country competitors is a significant parameter to map globally the competence.
Access 4 SMEs has also developed a tool to help analyse what is already in the market and what can be expected to be soon which you can download here.
Source: Access 4 SMEs Toolbox set for SMEs