How to write a competitive product analysis? Here’s a template to use!

If you are in product operations , competitive analysis has become an integral part of your job. Today I will bring you a summary of the competitive analysis methods and processes. I hope it will be useful for product novices and friends who need to do competitive product analysis in their daily work.

What is competitive analysis

The so-called competitive analysis refers to the comprehensive analysis of competitors, analysis of competition patterns, and analysis of competitive advantages. Generally speaking, the basic analysis process is as follows:

1. Data preparation: i.e. industry background analysis and competitor selection

2. Analysis basis: pattern analysis, location analysis, functional analysis and strategic analysis

3. Draw conclusions: competitive environment and competitive strategy

When conducting a competitive analysis, we can focus on it from three dimensions.

First, conducting a competitive analysis at the strategic selection level helps to establish the core competitiveness of products, effectively allocate resources, and reasonably set expected goals.

Secondly, at the product optimization level, it is one of the sources of demand for competitive analysis and the driving force for continuous product optimization under competitive pressure.

Third, from the perspective of personal growth. It can exercise logical thinking, enhance industry understanding, deepen the user-centered concept, and improve written expression skills.

Ultimately, we come up with thoughts about competitive analysis, the core of which is to help ourselves develop competitive strategies and formulate solutions based on our own strengths.

Competitive analysis preparation

After understanding the concept and process of competitive analysis, we need to prepare for competitive analysis.

It can be simply summarized into a 16-word policy: collect information - understand the market, select competitors, experience products, and summarize data.

1. Collect information and understand the market. Understand the overview of the basic industry, be familiar with the development stage of the industry market, understand the competitive landscape within the industry, and preliminarily judge new development opportunities or entry points.

2. Choose competing products. The competitions are generally divided into three categories:

(1) Core competitiveness, namely, competitors in the first-tier market directly related to the product.

(2) The significant competition is one of the most indirectly related products in the market.

(3) General competition refers to other products directly related to the market segment. In the selection of competitive products, the 2/8 principle should be adopted, focusing on highlighting 20% ​​of competitive products, while selecting 1-2 high-quality competitive products.

3. Experience the product. The experience methods include: basic operation process experience, interactive interface display mode experience, and functional experience. There are also some tips for experiencing products, such as starting from the scenario (5W1H), starting horizontally (all comparison functions) and vertically (experience functions).

4. Collect data. Data collection methods generally include: industry public data, inference of known data, empirical estimation, and technical capture.

What exactly is competitive analysis?

The preparations for the competitive analysis are already in place.

You have to ask, what exactly is competitive analysis doing?

In general, the basic ideas are: competition model analysis (overview), competitive positioning analysis, competitive function analysis, competitive strategy analysis, conclusions and suggestions (overview).

1. Analysis of competition landscape. Market size, market data analysis (competitive market share), market stage (monopoly, oligopoly, free competition; blue ocean, red ocean), see competitors' business models and where opportunities are.

2. Competitive positioning analysis. The main contents include target market positioning, product demand positioning, product differentiated value positioning and marketing mix positioning. The most important target market positioning includes the following parts:

Target market positioning. The main analysis focuses on target users, user base, user reputation, and user behavior (see industry report).

(1) Analysis of user categories and proportions. It mainly depends on the core users, mainstream users, ordinary users and the proportion of users.

(2) User scenario analysis, i.e. when, where and under what circumstances the product is used.

(3) Product function analysis. Product function analysis is mainly divided into three aspects: functional structure, user experience and product strategy analysis.

Final Thoughts

The process of competitive analysis is to know your friends and understand each other.

At the end of the competition analysis, product managers need to clarify the competitive environment, clearly understand the basic situation of the competitive environment, and see where their living space is.

At the same time, it is necessary to understand the changing trends and dynamic development trends of competition.

Secondly, summarize the competitive situation, summarize the competitive advantages and disadvantages, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of the company itself/products in the competition, and explain that in the current competitive environment, the company's own characteristics may be advantages.

Finally, suggestions for product development planning are given.

Be sure to remember to give specific suggestions after the analysis. The reason for analyzing competitors is to absorb their essence and improve yourself.

Source: Jianqunbao