Market Core · Competitors · Module
Capability comparison
What each rival can actually do, on the dimensions customers weigh — assessed from evidence, including where they are better.
The idea
How it works
Comparisons drawn on dimensions the organisation chose show the organisation ahead and predict nothing. The dimensions have to be the ones customers actually weigh, which requires asking them.
A comparison with no entries where a rival is better has not been made honestly, and everyone reading it knows that, which is why internal comparisons are rarely believed by the people who have to sell against them.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Use the customer’s dimensions
Take the criteria from won and lost deals rather than from a product roadmap.
- 02
Record where rivals are better
A comparison with no losses is a marketing document. Sales already know the truth.
- 03
Assess capability, not output
What they could do next matters more than what they currently ship.
- 04
Keep an internal version
The honest comparison is a working document. Publishing it is a separate decision and usually the wrong one.
One level in
The components of capability comparison
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
A comparison with no entries where a rival is better has not been made honestly, and sales already know it.
The other modules in competitors
The competitor set
Who is actually competing for the demand — direct rivals, substitutes, in-house alternatives and inaction — defined from what customers consider.
LearnReading their strategy
What a competitor is trying to become, inferred from where they invest, who they hire and what they decline — more predictive than anything they publish.
LearnMonitoring
The few developments that would change a decision, watched deliberately — because monitoring everything means monitoring nothing.
Learn