This premade template helps you map out four different kinds of competitors for any given industry or market: Leaders, Contenders, Niche, and High Performers. Use this template to compare your competitor’s products, market share, sales marketing strategies, prices, and growth projections to your own.
A competitive landscape analysis is the dynamic process of identifying, researching, and evaluating your competitors. Whether you’re a small start-up or a large company, every business must (eventually) learn to navigate their way around fierce competition. One excellent way to do this is to map out your competition using standard market research tools like a Competitive Landscape Analysis, which helps you understand the dynamics of your toughest competitors, ensuring your products offer something more than what’s already up for grabs on the market.
As a product owner, you have a vested interest in knowing how your products stack up against similar choices available to customers. This not only helps you develop counter-strategies to stay ahead of the pack but also conserves resources since you are able to avoid costly mistakes by learning from the failures of others. Your findings can be anything; from the need for tapping into underserved markets to finding new ways to improve your customer journey.
In our template, you will identify a list of your biggest competitors before categorizing them into one of four categories: Leaders, Contenders, Niche, and High Performers. Below, we dive into the key characteristics of each of these so you can easily figure out which rival companies around you fall under which category, and what their relative positioning in the market means for your future success & growth.
Where Can I Find My Competitors?
Now sure where to look for competitors? Here are some places worth checking out:
- Market research reports
- Search engines like Google
- Industry publications
- News articles
- Customer review websites (like Yelp or TripAdvisor)’
- Competitors’ websites
- Competitors’ social media presence
- Free online tools like Google Trends and Similarweb
Now, let’s explore our template in a bit more detail. Begin by selecting anywhere between five to ten competitors and then bucket your competitors into the following categories based on their position or standing in the market:
Leaders
Think of the most well-established brands that sell a similar product or meet the same customer needs. Apple is a great example of a market leader in the smartphone industry, holding a 28.38% share of the global smartphone market.
Market leaders are also the easiest type of competitor to spot since they have a high market presence. Find out which company boasts the largest market share in an industry or the highest percentage of total sales in a given market. All you need to do is run a simple market share analysis to find out which brands are racking up the greatest sales & profits in a given market or industry.
Leaders are usually companies with strong execution capabilities, a loyal customer base, high perceived value, and a clear vision for the market’s future. Think about what makes the current market leader so successful before strategizing how your company can do things better.
Contenders
Now think about who comes second. In other words, who poses the biggest threat to the dominant position enjoyed by the market or industry leader?
In the smartphone world, Samsung is the biggest contender for the leading position occupied by Apple since both companies are actively vying for market share within the same space by offering similar products to the same target market.
Just like an industry leader, contenders also possess strong capabilities, and boast high market presence. For this reason, they need to be closely monitored if you want to maintain your dominant position in the market.
Niche
Niche brands don’t target all and sundry – instead choosing to focus on a specific and smaller market segment. They also tend to have a more limited product portfolio than general competitors. But hey, just because they don’t offer a huge range of products doesn’t mean they don’t add value to the lives of their customers. Because they offer tailored solutions and expertise specifically for the needs & preferences of individual customers, they can establish a strong client base (which is why you need to watch out for them).
For example, a high-fashion boutique targeting a specific fashion style is a niche competitor for a large clothing store like H&M or Primark.
High Performers
In a hyper-competitive market environment, it’s not always so that one lucky company gets to dominate all others. Instead, what we often see is a bunch of high-performing companies battling for customers’ attention by consistently delivering high-quality products & services.
Pixar and Toyota are examples of high performers in the movie business and the automobile industry, respectively.
From what we have learned, high-performing companies can stand out in their respective markets thanks to their ability to adapt to changing market conditions, create the right work culture, and continuously improve their internal operations & processes to generate more value or utility for customers.
Who Is Our Template for?
- Business Strategists & Managers who want to analyze their competition and create winning market strategies.
- Marketing Teams who are running competitive analysis and developing positioning strategies.
- Product Owners & Product Development Teams who need to benchmark features against competitors and identify opportunities for growth & innovation.
- Consultants & Analysts in the process of creating detailed competitor profiles and advising clients.
Why Do You Need Our Template?
- To develop sales, marketing & pricing strategies that help you stay ahead.
- To understand the overall market or industry outlook
- to find new markets, industries, and user personas
- To improve your customer journey
- To make informed business decisions about positioning your new products & services
- To identify opportunities for product innovation
Wrap Up
Now that you have a more clear view of your competitive landscape, you can make more informed, data-driven decisions about your business. With the right understanding of your overall market or industry landscape, you are in a better position to decide things like whether you should perform a new product layout or not, or how to allocate resources to different departments/teams, or in what direction to develop your new marketing or sales strategies so you can more effectively cash in on new trends & market needs before your competitors beat you to it.
In addition, a CLA is also a brilliant way to learn about any new products your competitors are working on or any new, cool features they’re planning for old ones. Beyond the realm of product research & development, a competitive landscape analysis also helps you identify what kind of solutions customers are looking for – encouraging you to think of unique & innovative ways to solve their problems.
Before we tap out, just remember that many types of competitive matrices show data in different ways. At WordLayout, our team of professional researchers & designers spent hours studying the most popular matrices & charts out there. Based on our research, we developed a series of fully customizable templates in Excel and PowerPoint to accommodate a variety of different business needs & design preferences.
Use our competitive landscape template to compare your competitor’s products, market share, sales marketing strategies, prices, and growth projections to your own.
