Competitive Analysis

A competitive assessment is a way of evaluating your competitors' products, services and go-to-market strategy to identify their strengths and weaknesses relative to your own.

Competitive analysis is a critical part of your product development and launch strategy. It helps you articulate your competitive advantage which is central to your value proposition, evidence-generation plan and pricing strategy.

Your assessment should not only contain current products in the market but also anticipate new entrants. Ideally, you should build a picture of the competitive landscape at the time of your product launch and this should include products you’d potentially replace or compete with as well as any indirect competitors that are relevant in your target market.

Once you have chosen the competitive set for your assessment, gather as much information about them as possible. This should include product profile, performance, publications, key opinion leaders, go-to-market, selling and pricing strategy, as well as anything else that can help you objectively assess their strengths and weaknesses. Use these insights and compare them to your own strategies. Then, determine the elements of competitive advantage that are going to help you most to differentiate yourself so that you can gain adoption and market share.