I've been in a number of meetings this year when I've said something like; "Just do a benchmarking analysis and come back to us with the results" and be faced with stonewall faces. I don't know what it is, maybe it's the word 'Competitive' maybe it's 'analysis' but whatever it is, for some unknown reason people think that competitive analysis is more complex than it actually is.I did a quick google search and things started to make sense. There are so many resources that over complicate competitive analysis, making it seem much more than it really is. The basic aim of any competitive analysis is to give insight where previously there was ambiguity (or just darkness in some cases). A recent presentation from one of my colleagues really put things into context for me: Competitive analysis is really easy, as long as you know what you're doing. He presented his ideas on this area in such a clear, concise, step-by-step way that actually, a 12 year old could have done a decent job of the work.
The difficult part of competitive analysis is not in the analysis itself, it's in the interpretation of the results. So, in this series of posts, I'll be going through some analysis tools, and with real examples and a step-by-step approach. I'll be starting with Benchmarking.
If you have any particular analysis tools that you'd like me to try and demystify please feel free to comment.
2 comments:
Purist,
I'm hooked - I'm eagerly anticipating the rest of your series. The one big topic that I didn't see you talk about (but I'm hoping that you'll be covering) just what should people do with competitive analysis once its been created. As with all sharp tools, you can hurt yourself if you don't know what you are doing...!
- Dr. Jim Anderson
The Accidental PM Blog
"Home Of The Billion Dollar Product Manager"
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Thanks Dr Jim, yes I'll be covering this area for sure - The key componant for me is this: In isolation Competitive analysis means very little if not nothing - it's most effective purpose is to create more questions, and that the purist product manager will go about answering those questions by engaging with his customers. Failing to do this is akin to having an internally driven product strategy, and we all know where that leads: Bancrupcy-ville
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