Some of the most common methods we see organizations using to analyze competitors and glean insight are included below:

• SWOT analysis: This method involves analyzing a company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in relation to its competitors.
• Porter’s Five Forces: This method involves analyzing a company’s competitive environment by looking at the five forces that shape industry competition: the threat of new entrants, the bargaining power of suppliers and buyers, the threat of substitute products or services, and the intensity of competitive rivalry.
• Network node analysis: This method involves analyzing the relationships between a startup’s competitors and other companies, such as suppliers and partners, to identify potential opportunities or threats, by mapping large connections from the organization.
• Competitive benchmarking: This method involves comparing a company’s performance against that of its competitors in key areas such as product features, pricing, and marketing.
• Competitor profiling: This method involves creating detailed profiles of a company’s main competitors, including information on their products, services, target markets, competitive advantages, and strategies.

Here are even more techniques for looking at and analyzing competitors we recommend leaders know and understand:

• PESTLE analysis: This method involves analyzing the political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors that may impact a company’s competitive position in the market.
• Job postings analysis: This method involves analyzing job postings from a startup’s competitors to identify areas of growth or expansion, and potential areas for recruiting talent.
• Market share analysis: This method involves analyzing a company’s market share and comparing it to that of its competitors to determine its relative position in the market.
• Market Segmentation: Dividing the market into smaller groups of consumers with similar needs or characteristics, which allows companies to better understand and target specific segments of the market.
• Market positioning: This method involves identifying how a company’s products or services are perceived by consumers in relation to its competitors, and how it can be positioned in the market to achieve a competitive advantage.
• Patent analysis: This method involves analyzing the patents held by a startup’s competitors to identify their areas of innovation and potential areas for disruption.
• Customer Analysis: Identifying a company’s target customers and assessing their needs, behaviors and preferences, and how they compare to those of its competitors.
• Product-Market Grid Analysis: This method involves plotting a company’s products or services against the market segments they serve, to identify areas where the company is under or over represented.
• Internet scraping: This method involves using web scraping tools to gather data from a competitor’s website or other online sources, such as social media, to identify trends and patterns in their online presence.
• Distribution channel analysis: This method involves analyzing the distribution channels used by a company’s competitors and identifying opportunities for improving distribution coverage or reducing costs.
• Social Media Analysis: This method involves analyzing the social media presence of a company’s competitors to identify their strengths and weaknesses, including their engagement levels, followers and audience demographics.
• Key success factors analysis: This method involves identifying the key factors that contribute to a company’s success in the market and comparing them to those of its competitors to identify areas where the company may be at a competitive advantage or disadvantage.