Competitive Landscape Analysis (Part 1)

Synopsis

Develop a fierce competitive strategy as you evaluate not only your direct but also secondary competitors with our Competitive Landscape Analysis (Part 1) presentation. Competitive landscape analysis helps you see how you differ from your competition, better communicate this contrast to your customers and target marketing and sales more efficiently as you become aware of your competitors' limitations.

Questions and answers

Can you compare Competitive Landscape Analysis with other market analysis frameworks?

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Competitive Landscape Analysis and other market analysis frameworks like SWOT, PESTEL, and Porter's Five Forces all aim to understand the market dynamics and the company's position within it. However, they differ in their focus and approach. Competitive Landscape Analysis primarily focuses on understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the competitors in the market, their strategies, and their limitations. It helps in identifying opportunities and threats in the competitive environment and in formulating strategies to gain a competitive edge. On the other hand, SWOT analysis is a broader framework that not only considers competition but also internal factors like company's own strengths and weaknesses. PESTEL analysis focuses on the macro-environmental factors affecting the market. Porter's Five Forces analysis looks at the competitive forces shaping the industry including competition, threat of new entrants, bargaining power of suppliers and buyers, and threat of substitute products or services.

How does Competitive Landscape Analysis help in identifying the limitations of competitors?

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Competitive Landscape Analysis helps in identifying the limitations of competitors by providing a comprehensive view of the competitive environment. It allows you to evaluate not only your direct competitors but also secondary ones. By understanding how you differ from your competition, you can better communicate this contrast to your customers. Moreover, it enables you to target your marketing and sales more efficiently as you become aware of your competitors' limitations. This awareness can help you exploit their weaknesses and improve your own strategies.

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Slide highlights

Use this slide to communicate the benefits of competitive landscape analysis to your team. These include identifying your own and your competition's strengths and weaknesses and identifying where you stand out.

With this slide, share your findings and data about the current state of international competition. Introduce the information by region and let your stakeholders know how you can use the data to be more competitive globally.

The Kano Model helps you measure customer satisfaction with your product. This slide will allow you to demonstrate what you learned about the state of your clients' happiness and how to apply it to your product or service improvement.

Questions and answers

How can data from competitive landscape analysis be used to enhance global competitiveness?

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Data from competitive landscape analysis can be used to enhance global competitiveness in several ways. Firstly, it helps in identifying your own and your competition's strengths and weaknesses. This knowledge can be used to leverage your strengths and improve upon your weaknesses to gain a competitive edge. Secondly, it provides insights about the current state of international competition. This information can be used to strategize and position your business better in the global market. Lastly, tools like the Kano Model can help measure customer satisfaction, which can be used to improve your product or service, thereby enhancing competitiveness.

How can competitive landscape analysis help in identifying strengths and weaknesses?

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Competitive landscape analysis can help in identifying strengths and weaknesses by providing a comprehensive view of the market and your position within it. It allows you to understand your competitors' strategies, strengths, and weaknesses, which can be used to identify your own unique selling points and areas for improvement. This analysis can also highlight market trends and customer preferences, helping you to align your product or service offerings accordingly. It's a crucial tool for strategic planning and decision making.

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Overview

"A Competitive Landscape Analysis gives businesses a comprehensive view of their industry terrain. Without taking a moment to look around at what everyone else is doing, you're likely to miss a key opportunity, or be left behind as your competitors outpace you in their response to market demands," per a marketing agency, Build Create. The main benefits of creating competitive landscape analysis, the Build Create team says, are:

Questions and answers

What insights can a Competitive Landscape Analysis provide about industry trends and opportunities?

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A Competitive Landscape Analysis can provide valuable insights about industry trends and opportunities. It gives businesses a comprehensive view of their industry terrain, helping them understand their position in the market compared to their competitors. This analysis can reveal key opportunities that might be missed otherwise, and can prevent a business from being left behind as competitors respond to market demands. It can also help businesses fine-tune their objectives and approaches, ultimately saving hours of work.

How does a Competitive Landscape Analysis contribute to business strategy?

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A Competitive Landscape Analysis contributes to business strategy by providing a comprehensive view of the industry terrain. It allows businesses to understand their position in the market by comparing themselves against their competitors. This analysis can help businesses fine-tune their objectives and approaches, identify key opportunities, and respond effectively to market demands. Without such analysis, businesses risk being left behind as competitors may outpace them in responding to market changes.

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• Competitive landscape analysis helps you to become more self-aware as a brand
• It defines areas of weakness and opportunity in the market
• Such analysis shows you where you can stand out from the pack of competitors
• It helps to identify small ways to signal who you are within your industry
• It eliminates surprises from the competition
• Most importantly, if you don't have an eye on the competition, you're running blind

Questions and answers

Why is it important to keep an eye on the competition in any industry?

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Monitoring competition in any industry is crucial for several reasons. Firstly, it helps you become more self-aware as a brand, understanding your strengths and weaknesses in comparison to others. Secondly, it identifies opportunities in the market where you can stand out from the competition. Thirdly, it helps to eliminate surprises from competitors by staying informed about their strategies and actions. Lastly, without keeping an eye on the competition, you're essentially operating blindly, which can lead to missed opportunities and unexpected challenges.

What role does competitive landscape analysis play in differentiating a brand from its competitors?

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Competitive landscape analysis plays a crucial role in differentiating a brand from its competitors. It helps a brand become more self-aware by identifying its areas of weakness and opportunities in the market. This analysis shows where a brand can stand out from its competitors. It aids in identifying subtle ways to signal the brand's identity within the industry. Moreover, it helps to eliminate surprises from the competition. Most importantly, without keeping an eye on the competition, a brand would be running blind.

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Application

Here are the steps for creating a successful competitive landscape analysis, per product management solution platform, OutCry:

• Create a competitor content analysis – for your landscape analysis to provide powerful information, you should rely on more than Google searches. You can use tools, such as SEMRush to find out who's linking to your competition and what keywords they're ranking for in organic internet searches. Also, sign up for competitors' blogs or mailing lists to see what messages are being communicated to customers.
• Monitor social media – pay attention to the hashtags your competitors use and the type of content they produce on social media. "Find out how their engagement is compared to yours and get ideas on how you can improve. Instead of manually tracking your competitors, you can use a tool like SocialPilot to track your competition across multiple social media channels," the experts say.
• Create a competitive matrix – create a competitive matrix and record the information you have collected, so it's well organized. Identify the key features that are important to your customers, then rank yourself and your competitors in each category. As a last step, the experts say, use the matrix to determine where your company stands out and highlight those features for marketing and sales training.



Expert advice

"Whenever I've asked senior executives to map the positions of their company's brands and those of key rivals, we end up confused and dismayed," Richard D'Aveni, the Bakala Professor of Strategy at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business, shares. To solve this problem, D'Aveni came up with a tool companies could capture competitive positions graphically to serve as the basis for strategy discussions. He calls this tool "a price-benefit positioning map."


Questions and answers

Are there any case studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of the price-benefit positioning map?
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While the content does not provide specific case studies, the price-benefit positioning map is a tool developed by Richard D'Aveni, a professor of strategy at Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business. It is designed to graphically capture competitive positions, serving as a basis for strategy discussions. The effectiveness of this tool would likely be demonstrated through its application in various business scenarios, where it can help clarify the positions of a company's brands and key rivals. However, for specific case studies, one might need to refer to business strategy literature or directly to works by Richard D'Aveni.
What are the steps for a company to implement a price-benefit positioning map in their strategy?
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The steps for a company to implement a price-benefit positioning map in their strategy are as follows:

1. Identify the key benefits that your product or service offers. These should be the factors that differentiate you from your competitors.

2. Determine the price range for each benefit. This will help you understand how much customers are willing to pay for each benefit.

3. Plot the benefits against the price on a graph. This will give you a visual representation of where your product or service stands in relation to your competitors.

4. Use this map to identify gaps in the market and opportunities for differentiation. This can guide your strategy and help you position your product or service effectively.
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Here's what D'Aveni recommends to do to draw effective positioning maps:

Define the market

To draw a meaningful map, you must specify the boundaries of the market in which you're interested. Identify the consumer needs you wish to understand. You should cast a wide net for products and services that satisfy those needs, so you aren't blindsided by fresh entrants, new technologies, or unusual offerings that take care of those needs. Next, choose the country or region you wish to study. It's best to limit the geographic scope of the analysis if customers, competitors or the way products are used differ widely across borders. Then decide if you want to track the entire market for a product or only a specific segment if you wish to explore the retail or wholesale market, and if you're going to track products or brands.


Questions and answers

Why is it important to limit the geographic scope of the analysis in a Competitive Landscape Analysis?
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Limiting the geographic scope of the analysis in a Competitive Landscape Analysis is important because customers, competitors, and the way products are used can differ widely across borders. By focusing on a specific region or country, you can gain a more accurate and detailed understanding of the competitive landscape. This can help you identify key players, understand market trends, and assess the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors within that specific area.
How does understanding consumer needs contribute to a successful Competitive Landscape Analysis?
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Understanding consumer needs is crucial to a successful Competitive Landscape Analysis because it helps identify the boundaries of the market of interest. By understanding what consumers need, a business can identify potential products and services that satisfy those needs. This prevents the business from being blindsided by new entrants, technologies, or unusual offerings that cater to those needs. It also helps in deciding the geographic scope of the analysis and whether to track the entire market for a product or only a specific segment.
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Choose the price and determine the primary benefit

Specify the scope of your analysis of prices, D'Aveni says. You have implicitly decided whether to study retail or wholesale prices when you choose which market to focus on, but you must also consider other pricing parameters. Choose whether to compare initial prices or prices that include life cycle costs, prices with transaction costs or without them, and the prices of unbundled or bundled offers. These choices depend on the yardstick that customers use in making purchasing decisions in the market under study. Remember to be consistent about the price definition you use while gathering data, D'Aveni warns.


Questions and answers

How does the choice of price definition impact the data gathered in a competitive landscape analysis?
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The choice of price definition significantly impacts the data gathered in a competitive landscape analysis. It determines the type of data you collect and how you interpret it. For instance, if you choose to study retail prices, you'll focus on the end consumer's perspective. If you opt for wholesale prices, you'll be looking at the market from a distributor's viewpoint. Similarly, comparing initial prices versus prices that include life cycle costs can lead to different insights about the product's value. Prices with transaction costs or without them, and the prices of unbundled or bundled offers, also provide different perspectives. Therefore, it's crucial to be consistent about the price definition you use while gathering data.
What are the key considerations when specifying the scope of a competitive landscape analysis?
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When specifying the scope of a competitive landscape analysis, key considerations include defining the market to focus on, deciding on the pricing parameters to study, and determining the yardstick that customers use in making purchasing decisions. It's important to be consistent about the price definition you use while gathering data. Other considerations may include the geographical area, the time frame, the competitors to include in the analysis, and the specific aspects of the competitors' business models, strategies, products, or services that you want to analyze.
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Plot positions and draw the expected-price line

When the primary benefit is identified, draw a positioning map by plotting the position of every company's product (or brand) in the marketplace in accordance with its price and its level of primary benefit. Finally, you must draw the expected-price line – the line that best fits the points on the map and shows how much customers expect to pay on average to get different levels of the primary benefit.


Questions and answers

What is the process of drawing a positioning map in competitive landscape analysis?
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The process of drawing a positioning map in competitive landscape analysis involves several steps. First, identify the primary benefit that your product or brand provides. This could be anything from cost-effectiveness to superior quality or innovative features. Once you've identified this primary benefit, plot the position of every company's product or brand in the marketplace based on its price and its level of this primary benefit. This will give you a visual representation of where your product stands in relation to your competitors. Finally, draw the expected-price line. This is the line that best fits the points on the map and shows how much customers expect to pay on average to get different levels of the primary benefit.
What is the role of the expected-price line in a Competitive Landscape Analysis?
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The expected-price line in a Competitive Landscape Analysis plays a crucial role in understanding the market positioning of a company's product or brand. It is drawn on a positioning map, which plots the position of every company's product in the marketplace based on its price and its level of primary benefit. The expected-price line best fits the points on the map and shows how much customers expect to pay on average to get different levels of the primary benefit. This line helps in understanding customer expectations and can guide pricing strategies.
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