a little misleading; competitive analysis

Question

this case initially says not to waste time understanding the "competitive landscape", but later in the case, we're looking at the competitor's distribution strategy... while i understand this isn't the entire "landscape", it is still a competitive analysis, specifically in the context of the metric we're looking at. this is a little misleading when going through the case the first time

Answer 1

When you refer to "competitive landscape" at the beginning of the case you refer to:

Number of players and their market share
Potential substitute product
Comparision of products
Barriers to entry

To do a benchmark of your costs, indeed, is a best practice that you can always use in order to better undersand your state.

Hope it helps,
Luca

Answer 2

I think the "largest retail customer" is the largest shop that sells our products. That is, the shop from which we ga... (read entire answer)

I think the "largest retail customer" is the largest shop that sells our products. That is, the shop from which we gain most of our sales revenue.