Use competitive analysis tools to help synthesize research results

Competitive analysis tools help you analyze research collected and anticipate competitor moves so you can stay a step ahead of your opponents. Competitors can be grouped in a couple of different ways. You can look at products and services that compete for the same customer dollars, which means evaluating competitors who offer the same type of product or service and those offering substitute products or services.  You can also group competitors according to the competitive strategies they use to extend their reach.

There are a variety of tools to help you evaluate competitors.  Some popular tools or methods are mentioned below, but are not detailed due to the wealth of information already available elsewhere on the Internet. Be sure to visit the “Discover more” section below for more information.

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Determine your competitor’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) relative to your product or service offering. Strength and weaknesses are internal factors while opportunity and threats are external issues. See NetMBA.com, Emerald Works’ Mind Tools or Alan Chapman’s website, www.businessballs.com, for an overview.

The Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) growth share matrix enables companies to determine how best to allocate scare resources or cash flow among the markets or industries they compete in. Each quadrant – dogs, cash cows, stars, and question marks – has a recommended marketing strategy to pursue. Bubbles can be drawn around each product/service offering to show sales volume of the entire market or show the sales contribution of that market to the firm’s profits. You can go further and show where your solution’s portfolio or products are positioned on the matrix relative to the competition to help anticipate competitor moves and/or more easily determine whether to invest or divest and to what degree.

The matrix does have limitations, however.  For instance, market growth and market share are not the only success factors, and ‘dogs’ (low market growth and low market share) may make more money than ‘cash cows’ (low market growth, but high market share).1, 2  Also, blank rules of what percent to invest or divest do not apply equally across the board of products and solutions.3   See the Internet Center for Management and Business Administration, Inc.article, “The BCG Growth-Share Matrix,” on NetMBA.com, Mind Tools “The Boston Matrix“, and the The Marketing Study Guide “Limitations of the BCG Matrix” for more information.

Perform a Win-Loss Analysis of your company sales by tracking who your competitors are in each situation in order to uncover who your company won business away from and why, and conversely, who you lost business to and why. Performing this analysis, not only helps sharpen your messaging and refines your target customer profile, but it can help improve your sales processes while learning about your competition’s strength and weaknesses.

Be sure to supplement your analysis with updates shared in the press and other secondary resources on competitors. Keep an ear out at industry networking events where big wins and capabilities are mentioned. Above all else, however, maintain a close relationship with customers to gain their trust and insights in to those they do business with and why. Several online sources offer key insights. You can start with Bob Apollo’s Customer Think (blog) “Go Beyond Win/Loss Reports and Find Out Why Others Chose ‘None of the Above’,” Shabnam Kakar’s article on “How to Conduct Win-Loss Analysis: A Step-by-Step Guide” found on Copper CRM, Inc. and David Brock’s blog article on “Performance Management Friday — Win/Loss Analysis” found on Partners In Excellence Blog.com to learn more.

Remember:  Each feature has a positive and negative benefit.  Use the features and benefits that resonate with your target audience.  By creating a chart, it’s easy to see a comparison between a listing of your product or service’s features and benefits versus your competition.  Remember:  Features describe what a product or service is, how it is purchased, or what it can do, while benefits describe what the product or service enables a user or buyer to achieve or satisfy in the end result.  For more insights, visit  Ivana S.Taylor’s article “How to Use a Feature Benefit Table to Create an Irresistible Offer” on DIY Marketers (blog).

This framework has five forces of competition – supplier power, threat of substitutes, threat of new entrants, power of buyers, and the degree of rivalry or competition that comes from them  Michael E. Porter’s Competitive Strategy:  Techniques for Analyzing Industries and Competitors.4  Other sources where you can learn more about Porter’s 5 Forces include Investopedia US’s “Industry Handbook:  Porter’s 5 Features Analysis,” QuickMBA’s “Porter’s Five Forces: A Model for Industry Analysis,” and Business News Daily’s article by Marci Martin, “How Porter’s Five Forces Can Help Small Businesses Analyze the Competition.”

Some would add a sixth to Michael Porter’s 5 forces –  the power of complementary products that serve the market.  See Investopedia.com’s “Six Forces Model” for more information.

This tool by J.B. Barney provides a framework for analyzing how a firm’s internal resources compare to competitors. Firms with resources that are valuable, rare, costly to imitate, and have an organization ready to capitalize on those resources will have a sustained competitive advantage. See Strategic Management Insight “VRIO Framework” for more information.

Developed by Michael E. Porter, the value chain analysis is a process where a firm is broken up into strategically relevant activities in order to understand the behavior of costs and sources of differentiation. By identifying each activity, then evaluating its costs and value delivered, managers can look for ways to optimize each activity, making sure each aligns with the company’s overall strategy.  Each step in creating the product or service should add some incremental value to the finished product or product in order to find ways to improve it and/or create a competitive advantage. See Investopedia.com’s article on “Value Chain Analysis: What It Is and How to Use It” for more information.

Discover more…

  1. Austin, Steven. “How to Conduct and Competitive Analysis in 2025: The Definitive Guide.” Image Media Partners, LLC. Last modified May 12, 2024. https://www.marketingscoop.com/marketing/how-to-conduct-a-competitive-analysis-in-2024-the-definitive-guide/.
  2. Bell, Simon. “Porter’s Five Forces – The Framework Explained.” Emerald Works Limited. Accessed May 15, 2025. https://www.mindtools.com/at7k8my/porter-s-five-forces.
  3. Bond, Conor. “Hot to Create a Competitive Matrix (Step-by-Step Guide with Examples + Free Templates).” Crayon (blog). Last modified November 1, 2022. https://www.crayon.co/blog/competitive-matrix-examples.
  4. “15 Must-Have Tools for Strategic Marketers to Track Competitors (and Understand Their Audience Too).” OneCliq.io (blog). Last modified May 7. 2025. https://www.onecliq.io/blog/15-must-have-tools-for-strategic-marketers-to-track-competitors-and-understand-their-audience-too.
  5. Gratton, Peter. “Porter’s Five Forces Explained and How to Use the Model.” Investopedia. Accessed May 15, 2025. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/porter.asp.
  6. Hanlon, Annmarie. “How to Use the BCG Matrix Model.” SmartInsights. Last modified January 7, 2022. https://www.smartinsights.com/marketing-planning/marketing-models/use-bcg-matrix/.
  7. “How to Create a Competitive Analysis (with examples).” Asana, Inc. Last modified February 23, 2025. https://asana.com/resources/competitive-analysis-example.
  8. Jurevicius, Ovidijus. “VRIO Framework.” Strategic Management Insight. Last modified December 1, 2023. http://www.strategicmanagementinsight.com/tools/vrio.html.
  9. “Reviews Organized by Markets.” Gartner, Inc. and/or its Affiliates. Accessed May 15, 2025. https://www.gartner.com/reviews/markets.
  10. Stroud, J. DeLayne. “Understanding the Purpose and Use of Benchmarking.” iSixSigma. Accessed May 15, 2025. http://www.isixsigma.com/methodology/benchmarking/understanding-purpose-and-use-benchmarking/.
  11. Whitler, Kimberly A. “How The Best Marketers Are Using Analytics to Create Competitive Advantage.” Forbes. Last modified July, 19, 2015. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kimberlywhitler/2015/07/19/how-some-of-the-best-marketers-are-using-analytics-to-create-a-competitive-advantage/.
  12. Zucchi, Kristina, CFA. “Value Chain Analysis.” Investopedia, LLC. Last modified February 13, 2018. http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/111014/basics-value-chain-analysis.asp.
Sources:
1“The BCG Growth-Share Matrix,”Internet Center for Management and Business Administration, Inc., accessed January 4, 2024, http://www.netmba.com/strategy/matrix/bcg/.
2“Limitations of the BCG Matrix,” The Marketing Study Guide, accessed January 4, 2024, https://www.marketingstudyguide.com/limitations-of-the-bcg-matrix/.
3Ibid.

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