In my last post I began a presentation of the components of a market view analysis and how to present them to your company leadership. This week, I’m picking up where I left off. The list of 13 components I began explaining last week includes:
- Market focus
- Size of your market and expected growth rate
- Overview of your company’s current marketing position
- Matrix of your top competitors by market segment
- Detailed breakdown of competitors
- Overview of your current position with a focus on market opportunities
- Buy vs. build opportunities
- Possible acquisition candidates
- Risks and contingencies
- Potential competitive movements
- Deep dive into specific competitors
We’ll begin with bullet four: Matrix of your top competitors by market segment.
Analyzing Top Competitors as Part of Your Market View Analysis
As Product Manager, you’ll need to create an easily understood slide showing your company’s top competitors in each market segment. This slide should also reveal how these companies compete with your firm in multiple areas of business.
Once this slide is complete, you’ll want to single out the top five competitors and write a short description of each. Include each company’s profile, strategic direction, and partnerships. The narrative should indicate how each company differentiates itself from competitors. What gives them a leg up in the market?
Your Opportunities
Next consider areas where there are gaps that your company could fill. Now that you’ve covered competitors you have a good idea of where your company stands in the mix. You can begin considering buy versus build opportunities that will secure your market position. The presentation of findings should outline your reasoning about whether you should buy or build certain aspects of your products’ planned new capabilities.
If you become convinced it is better to acquire a component rather than build it, you must create a list of potential acquisition targets. Include target companies, their revenue, and the market segments they serve. Of course, it is also important to explain any known risks connected with the acquisition. These include things like:
- How should the company be valued?
- Are they amenable to being acquired?
- Next steps in the acquisition process
Eye on the Competition
Take a look at what the competition has been up to on the acquisition front. Has a competitor been binge buying in recent years? Have competitors been raising capital? Are they making moves to control strategic channels important to your business? All this bears consideration along with how competitors will react to your firm acquiring another.
The Final Step
The last part of the market view analysis contains a deep dive into the profiles of your five top competitors. You’ll need a short summary of each competitor’s annual revenue, number of employees, ownership status, products, and any ideas you have about their future direction.
When complete, the market analysis will keep senior leadership aligned with the market you serve and plan to grow. The sensitivity of the information contained in this report makes it unsuitable to share with anyone but senior leadership.
In my next post I’ll talk about the document you should create to share with customer facing employees.
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