How can you develop a competitive analysis framework for product management?

When I was working on a product for the first time, how competitive analysis helped our team was by revealing blind spots we hadn't considered. Also, understanding our competitors' strengths and weaknesses helped us refine our value proposition. In my opinion, early product managers should do competitive analysis to understand how are others doing it, why certain things are in place or why certain things are the way they are to build better products themselves. One way to do that (not the only way) is to look at what other players in the same industry are doing.

Conducting a competitive analysis provides insights into competitors' strengths and weaknesses, helping you to refine your product strategy to capitalize on market gaps or underserved needs. When we evaluate the features, pricing, and user experiences of competing products, we are able to identify trends, anticipate market shifts, and make informed decisions about product development and positioning. A thorough competitive analysis enables you to align your product more closely with customer expectations and preferences, enhancing its competitive edge. It's a strategic tool that guides the development of unique value propositions, ensuring your product stands out in a crowded marketplace.

- Market Insight: Understand your position in the market relative to your competitors. This insight helps in identifying both threats and opportunities. - Strategic Planning: Inform your product development and marketing strategies by identifying what works well in your market and where competitors may be falling short.

Conducting a competitive analysis is pivotal in product management as it offers invaluable insights into the market, customers, and competitors, thereby aiding in informed decision-making and strategy formulation such as (not limited to): - By evaluating competitors' offerings, one can validate their product idea against existing solutions in the market. - Analyzing competitors' strengths and weaknesses helps identify gaps and unmet needs in the market. - Understanding competitor offerings enables to differentiate the product effectively. - By benchmarking against competitors, one can assess their product’s performance and market position. - Competitive analysis also helps monitor market trends and changes, enabling timely adaptations.

As a product manager, one of the most crucial tasks is to understand the competitive landscape thoroughly. Few steps you can follow are as follow: 1. Figuring out who your competitors are. 2. Checking what they're selling and how well they're doing. 3. Listening to what customers think. 4. Seeing how fancy their technology is. 5. Understanding their strengths and weaknesses. Looking at how they sell stuff. 6. Keeping an eye on the rules they need to follow. 7. Always updating and improving your strategy based on what you learn. This helps you find ways to stand out and stay ahead.

In my experience, searching for direct & indirect competitors and looking out for potential disruptors in our operating industry worked quite well. To identify direct competitors, I usually start by listing companies that offer products or services similar to ours and target the same customer segments. For narrowing down the list, I look for additional factors such as market share and geographic presence. To identify indirect competitors, I start by looking for companies that even though serve the same customer segment as ours but differ in their offering entirely. For example, since we were selling a project management software, indirect competitors were existing task management apps and collaboration tools.

Start by identifying direct competitors (those offering similar products or services) and indirect competitors (those offering alternatives to your products). Segment the market to understand the different niches or customer groups each competitor targets. This helps in identifying where competition is most intense and where there are gaps in the market.

Defining the competitive landscape is crucial before delving into competitive analysis. - Direct competitors offer similar products or services targeting the same customer needs, while indirect competitors offer different solutions but compete for the same customer base. - Market research, customer interviews, surveys, and online search are invaluable tools for identifying competitors. - Segmenting the market based on customer needs and preferences helps identify competitors catering to specific segments. - Market dynamics are constantly evolving, necessitating continuous monitoring of the competitive landscape. - Evaluating competitors’ strengths and weaknesses provides insights into market gaps and opportunities.

For this, what I do is maintain a spreadsheet for key data points like competitors' products or services, pricing strategies, target markets, customer reviews, marketing tactics and market share. (You can narrow down based on factors most relevant to your industry and business objectives) Then, I keep gathering competitive data from a variety of sources like competitor websites, product demos, press releases, industry reports, customer reviews, and social media channels. Setting up Google Alerts and RSS feeds to receive real-time updates about competitors' activities, product launches and any industry news helps. Once I've collected data from various sources, I analyze and synthesize the information to extract any insights.

I'll say focus on looking for patterns, trends and outliers that can inform your understanding of the competitive landscape. Identify competitors' strengths and weaknesses, key differentiators and areas of opportunity or threat. SWOT analysis and Porter's 5 forces do help. Other than that, I just compare how competitors are performing on few established metrics like customer satisfaction levels, market share and growth rates etc.

Identify the unique selling points (USPs) of each competitor and compare them to your product's USPs. Determine areas where your product can differentiate itself effectively. This could be through features, pricing, customer service, or other aspects of the product or service. Next, PMs can analyze how competitors position themselves in the market and how customers perceive them. Determine where your product fits in this landscape and how you can position it effectively to stand out.

Identify around 5-10 competitors in your industry /space and then understand the 4P's of their marketing strategy and conduct SWOT analysis of each competitor.

What has always helped me is embracing a mindset of continuous learning and iteration. If there are still issues even after having a framework in place just stay curious, remain vigilant and be prepared to pivot your strategy as needed to navigate the turbulent waters of the market and you will be okay.