To welcome us into the new year, Dragon’s Den‘s James Caan talks Market Share. His advice will help the teams taking part in the 2009-2010 Apax Partners-Mosaic Enterprise Challenge, as they near the half way mark…

Market share is one of the key metrics for a small enterprise’s profitability – by growing its market share, companies can leverage their ‘size’ to get better deals from suppliers and hence lower their cost of goods sold – a classic example of ‘economies of scale’.

Companies that achieve high market share also are better positioned to win big-ticket contracts, simply because larger clients often choose market leaders over smaller firms. It is therefore important to find ways to grow your market share. For a small company this can often be difficult when competing with larger more established companies that already dominate the market.

However, being innovative, fresh and understanding what your customer really wants or convincing them that they need your product will give you an edge and help you attract more customers away from the competition.

It is time to be creative, persuasive and think outside of the box – give your consumers every reason to switch from the competition to you and you will be able to reap all the benefits of having a larger market share.