Competitive Analysis

What: The Competitive Analysis is a tool to summarize and take inventory of what competitors are offering relative to your product/service/platform.

Why: The competitive analysis helps identify where you stand in the face of competition. You may learn that you have a best practice or competitive differentiator – or you may see best practices elsewhere that you may want to evaluate.

An in-depth analysis of your competitors is important to do periodically, depending on the level of change/innovation in your industry. It is important to stay abreast of changes and update your Fact Book.

Competitor Analysis

Who are your competitors?
Make a list of direct competitors in your space/ industry
Include any entity that has an impact on your target customer, look outside the financial services industry

Rank Competitors
From this list of competitors, rank them in terms of their influence on your target customer. Number them in terms of influence
To validate your analysis, ask yourself: Can I identify each competitor with a direct influence on my target market even if they aren’t doing it the same way I am? If you answer no, revise your list.

Analyze Competition
List your competitive set in order of influence on your target customer
Define the main categories that are most important to your target customer
Score yourself against your competitors
Analyze your competitors so you can define your competitive advantage


Product/ Service Differentiation

How do you differentiate your product/ service?
One effective way to do this is by clearly defining your product strategy. This will shape what you are and what you are not delivering in your product/ service.
The strategy will reflect:

1) The choice of products/ services you offers and the customers you seek to serve
Example: Should Ford introduce an updated model of the Barracuda or introduce a new set of models?

2) Competitive Differentiation. How you compete to attract, win, and retain customers.

Example: Nordstrom’s differentiates itself from the competition based on superior service and breadth of product selection in shoes.

3) The goals you pursue

Example: Should Apple try to be a major participant in every segment of the audio/ stereo industry or aim to be a leader in the small personal player segment?

On the next page, the major levers are identified to help you develop a product/ service strategy.