jankel egbert rynaldo
Florencia Abila
Turns out, while the book itself talks about military backdrops and references of war, the ideas in the book have been widely used in modern business. In fact for many years The Art of War has been a required reading for executives in Chinese & Japanese companies, as well as within longstanding titans of corporate America.
Understanding our operating environment, which competitors are a key part of helps us steer clear of nasty surprises. It helps us create better products, articulate our USPs, and participate in the marketplace in winning ways.
Instead, You must keep at it, building a profile of your competitors over time, little by little. Competitive analysis never stops. We must continue to refresh the profile with the latest and greatest information as we find, uncover or stumble upon them.
Over the years, my own approach to competitive analysis and competitive response has in many ways been inspired by The Art of War. What follows is a framework that I use to keep track of competitors, anticipate and plan competitive responses as well as tactics to dig information about them.
One of my favorite tools to visualize the competitive set and is the Mekko chart. A Mekko chart (sometimes also called Marimekko chart) is a two-dimensional stacked chart. In addition to the varying segment heights of a regular stacked chart, a Mekko chart also has varying column widths.
As you can see, a Mekko chart quickly tells you a lot about your competitors, market segments and how you stack up in these segments. The Mekko chart is a tool PMs can use to to ground their organization on what the competitive landscape looks like. Its helps everybody get on the same page in planning your competitive moves. It is just one tool, there are several such tools available to visualize the competitive landscape and see where you fit into at current state. Then you can plan what your future state should look like.
We must also assume that just as we plan and strategize against our competitors, our competitors are at it against us too. But the idea is to not obsess over competitors, but rather anticipate and plan for it.
The Art of War. I\u2019d never heard of the book before\u2014but found the title to be intriguing. It is a military treatise attributed to Sun Tzu (\u5B59\u5B50) , a celebrated military strategist in ancient China.
Anyway, I began to listen to the audiobook on my commutes to and from work. And as the book unraveled, I learnt that Sun Tzu\u2019s book was less to do with military and battles, and more to do with strategies and tactics on competing and winning, \u2014not by force, but by careful planning.
In the 13 or so chapters of the book, Sun Tzu lays out strategies on how to think about competition, when and where to compete and how to outmaneuver competition with Philosophy, Wit and Careful planning\u2014without the need for actual combat.
My personal experience here is that in Product led companies, the Product Manager is often the generator, owner and maintainer of this information. PMs are required to be experts in the competition \u2014necessary to create and finetune their respective product strategies.
In other words, as PMs we must know who else is out there trying to build a solution to the same problem we\u2019re trying to solve? We must anticipate, identify and define the threats competitors pose to our business success. And ultimately, we must preempt the competition from outmaneuvering us, as we work relentlessly yet covertly to outmaneuver them\u2014with new features, business models and world class execution.
Competitive analysis is easier said than done. There are no guidelines on how to approach it, and that\u2019s what makes it tricky. First off, you will never have all the information that you think you need. Competitive Analysis involves a lot of *educated* guesswork, triangulation of multiple data points from *public* competitive activity.
Analyzing competitors is detailed, patient work. It cannot be rushed. I have seen PMs scrambling to google the competition a day before a presentation is due. And while scrambling might help you build a couple of charts \u2014 it will not help you win in the marketplace.
Before you read further, I want to remind you that in the quest for competitive information, we are often walking a tightrope\u2014 there are things that we can do \u2014and there are other things that can get you and your business into legal trouble. So I urge you to compete ethically and legally. Anything else is not worth it.
Your DIRECT Competitors are Companies that offer a similar product or service in the same category as you. For instance, McDonald\u2019s Vs. Burger King, TOYOTA Vs. NISSAN, Netflix Vs. Amazon Prime Video.
But then there is Indirect Competition - and this is where many strong companies have been blindsided in the past. Your Indirect competitors are companies that offer a seemingly different product \u2014but in the same category as you.
Netflix tries to actively identify and articulate their indirect competition. On the surface, Netflix competes directly with Disney+, HBO, Amazon Prime, and other video streaming services\u2014but it has time and again recognized that its most significant threat comes from not video streaming services but from rather unusual sources that are not immediately obvious.
Even though the Gaming companies, video sharing- social media companies aren\u2019t really into streaming/making movies, dramas, and documentaries- but much like Netflix, they are also competing to capture a larger share of customers\u2019 attention and screen time.
As a PM doing competitive analysis \u2014 do not simply list your obvious competitors offering perfect substitutes of your product\u2014but think hard and wide about who else is out there that is offering a product that might become a substitute \u2014competing for a share of the same wallet, same mindshare & attention as you?
Once you understand your competitive landscape, the next step is to create a profile of your top competitors. Your Competitors\u2019 Profile documents their Strategy, products, pricing, and other key competitive traits. There are a bunch of ways to get this info - here are my favorite ones.
Annual Reports\u2014If your competitor is a publicly listed company, you can get a lot of information (revenues, market segments, financials etc.) from their investor filings and annual reports. In addition, a company\u2019s annual reports and letters to shareholders reveal a lot about how the leadership thinks about the business. You\u2019ll also find mention of programs that the business thinks will directly create shareholder value! They will also list their direct and indirect competitors as well as list out the major threats and opportunities that they foresee for their business. Annual reports are a goldmine of information
Follow the Leaders: Start with a search for publicly available presentations, videos, podcasts, and talks from top leaders of your competitors. Look at their website, read their blogs, and subscribe to their newsletters. Follow them on social media \u2014and you\u2019ll get solid insights into how the company thinks about its business.
Track deal activity in your space and see what your competitors are up to. M&A transactions can give you a very good sense of how the product/market strategy of a competitor might be evolving. This is an effective tactic for privately held competitors that don\u2019t have a lot of information in the public domain.
Keyword Analysis : You can snoop on your competitors through search keywords that they target for their Organic Search / PPC campaigns. There are many tools in the market (e.g. BuzzSumo, SEMRush) that will let you analyze what your competitors are investing in to get page 1 results on search engines\u2014and this will give you ideas on how to plan your own winning campaigns accordingly.
Customer feedback: Get it straight from the customers that buy your competitor products. Of course you can interview your competition\u2019s customers in the name of market research \u2014but you can just as easily find what customers really think on the internet \u2014look at their Amazon reviews, subreddit posts and online communities. Use this information to make your own products better.
Google\u2019s Patent Search \u2014Filing a patent is expensive and typically companies only file patents when they think there is value in protecting the advantage an innovation might ushers in. Google\u2019s patent search is a great way to dig information about any patent or invention that your competitor might have filed.
Use a 3rd party - If you don\u2019t have the bandwidth to do any/all of the above, there are services that you can subscribe to (for a fee) that will provide you curate this information for you. I\u2019ve personally used and like Owler that curates Sales intelligence, Competitive activities, and trends in the industries that you choose to follow. (If you are aware / have used other competitor tracking services, drop them in the comments!)
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