The sentence > Our business stands out from our contemporaries. forces *business* and *contemporaries* to be compared as though they were the same class of object, when what you really wish to compare is *your business* and *the business of your contemporaries*. Therefore, to be clear and precise in modern English you should compare those things, as follows: > Our business stand out from the business of our contemporaries. Or, in case you are using business as a count noun to denote that each of your as a business that does not part of a common set of features, try > Our business stands out from the businesses of our contemporaries. You can avoid repetition, if you wish, this way: > Our business stands out from that of our contemporaries or > Our business stands out from those of our contemporaries.