Short and sharp! 14 things to note when analyzing competitive products

What is Competitive Analysis ?

The so-called competitive product analysis is to analyze the products of competitors, and the output is a competitive product analysis report.

Regarding competitor analysis, I have written a related article in the past, and I really don’t want to repeat the points, so today, I will only talk about the precautions. You can assume that by mastering the considerations mentioned today and practicing them, you can write a qualified competitive product analysis report.

About competitive product selection

1. Your fellow travelers on the same track may not necessarily be your competitors, but may be partners for cooperation.

2. Products that are not currently on the same track may become competitors, so we must start from the industry and select benchmark competitors and potential partners for cooperation.

3. Even if there is no obvious competitor product, it is still possible to conduct a simple product analysis because of a relatively powerful functional point or similar design concept.

About the purpose of analysis

4. Competitive analysis itself is for the purpose of obtaining intelligence, so you must have some understanding of the source of the intelligence. You should find ways to obtain both macro and micro data. Various third-party statistical data and even the annual industry report of the National Bureau of Statistics should be what you should know. As for the detailed product data, think of a way, whether it is reverse deduction or undercover operation, you can always get it.

5. Clarifying the purpose of analysis is as important as controlling the output of analysis. The worst thing is that because they are your competitors, you have to analyze every fart of theirs. The purpose of analysis is to collect valuable intelligence, not to follow up and review meaninglessly.

6. The purposes are nothing more than a few: observe, learn, follow, and counterattack. However, different purposes will require different focuses in the analysis process, so don’t be greedy and want everything. It may be faster to complete it multiple times in different stages than to do it all at once.

Analysis process

7. Positioning analysis is the starting point for analyzing all competing products. Platform providers and service providers may have completely different strategies. For different positioning, even if the strategies are very different, it is impossible to determine the advantages and disadvantages of different strategies, because the starting points are different and the end points may not be the same. Even if the end points are the same, the differences in the transit points will be very large.

8. Don’t easily praise any functional points of your competitors that are different from your own products, and don’t easily oppose any functional points of your competitors that are different from your own products. Focus on positioning, talk about differences, not good or bad - unless you have sufficient evidence to prove it.

9. Avoid bringing your own role into the analysis. Analysis should be objective. Whether the analysis conclusions themselves can be used subjectively by other internal organizations should not affect the original intention of the analysis. In other words, don't analyze for the sake of analysis, and don't piece together arguments for the sake of conclusion.

10. As for the different focuses, if you focus on observation, you must faithfully and quickly restore the Road Map of competitor development, and try to summarize the timeline of business development; if you focus on learning, you must reverse plan the changes in each version to put yourself in the role of the other party; if you focus on following, then the most important thing is to complete the functional logic and business logic replication; if you want to counterattack, then it is more important to speculate on the context of its business development from the existing product version, and formulate countermeasures and gradually implement them.

About the output

11. Mind maps help you organize your thoughts and work backwards from functional points. For long-term observation, you need a Word document with a version number. PPT or Keynote is a presentation tool for internal sharing. Excel is very valuable for recording version information.

12. The analysis report can adopt the "general-specific-general" structure. First, state the purpose of the analysis, and then come up with the conclusions of each module. This is the first "general"; around these conclusions, develop your analysis process. All processes are presented in modules and must be supported by data. If not, there must be logical expression. This is the middle "specification"; finally, express your feelings after this analysis, and what you think the product should follow, learn from, and avoid. This is the last "general".

13. Observing a product for a long time and continuously producing analysis reports is actually the most difficult thing. Therefore, it is recommended that after each competitive product analysis, regular follow-up should be done. Once the small version is followed up, the big version will be easier. Of course, this logic is not valid for a major version that completely subverts the previous one.

14. If the competitive product analysis report is to be put on the shelf, then it makes no difference whether it is done or not.

The author of this article @张亮 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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