Top 10 questions in competitor research for strategy teams

Often it is strategy teams that manage and instigate competitive intelligence projects. Competitor analysis may be the goal for its own sake or it may be conducted in support of other activities such as corporate strategy, acquisitions or reorganizations.

Competitor analysis questions asked by strategy teams may be similar to those asked by other business teams, and in fact may be used to enable those business teams in their own projects. What is the competitor planning? What is the competitor’s product roadmap? What is the competitor’s messaging? How is the competitor organized to achieve its plans? Across the hundreds of research projects that we have conducted, below are the top ten questions about competitors that get asked by strategy teams.

1. What are the competitor’s plans for the one to three year's ahead?

2. What are the competitor’s revenues, by segmentations such as industry, customer size and product?

3. What is the competitor’s product roadmap?

4. What is the competitor’s messaging?

5. What is the competitor’s organization chart?

6. How is the competitor organized to achieve its plans?

7. How are sales teams organized and incentivized?

8. How does the competitor address different customer segments, and what do they offer each segment?

9. How does the competitor integrate its acquisitions?

10. What are the priorities and KPIs of each member of the leadership team?

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