Competitive analysis

Competitive analysis is the structured assessment of your competitors, their products, pricing, positioning, strengths and weaknesses, with the goal of understanding the field well enough to make better decisions of your own. It turns a vague sense of the competition into a clear, comparable view.

A thorough analysis usually maps competitors across consistent dimensions so you can compare like with like:

• Their target customers and positioning.
• Product capabilities and where they lead or lag.
• Pricing, packaging and business model.
• Marketing, channels and market presence.

The discipline is in being honest. It is tempting to overstate competitors' weaknesses and understate their strengths, but a flattering analysis leads to poor strategy. The most valuable competitive analysis names the places where rivals genuinely beat you, because those are the gaps worth closing or routing around.

While a one-time analysis is useful, its value decays as the market moves. Keeping the picture current is the hard part. RivalDesk addresses this by continuously monitoring each competitor and updating what it knows, so your competitive analysis is a living view rather than a document that was accurate the day it was written.