Competitive Matrix: A Detailed Guide with Analysis, Examples & Report Templates

What is a Competitive Matrix?

A competitive matrix is a type of competitive analysis tool, which helps you learn about your market segment and identify opportunities. This in turn differentiates your brand from competitors, aids in creating better products, and helps in developing stronger marketing strategies. A competitive matrix thus can be quite useful in establishing your company’s competitive advantage.

There are different types of competitive matrices, but most of them are simple charts, also known as competitive comparison matrices, wherein you list the main features and benefits of your product or service. On the top row, you list your company and the names of your competitors, and fill in the chart with the appropriate information for each company. However, they can also be complex graphs, such as a competitive positioning matrix or competitive landscape chart, with x and y axes representing unique positioning within a market segment. Competitive matrices can be used for any form of competitive analysis, including SWOT analysis, features and benefits analysis, content marketing strategies, review tracking, and much more, making them a flexible part of your marketing intelligence system.

Steps for Competitive Matrix Analysis

It is often said that a competitive matrix is only as good as the information included in it. Therefore, to get accurate data and details to use in your competitive matrix charts, it is imperative that you first perform a comprehensive competitive analysis. You can use insights gleaned from a competitive intelligence solution such as Contify. Do not jump into creating a competitive positioning matrix template before you’ve done extensive research and have enough data to plot on your chart. When you’re satisfied, you may begin in the following manner:

1. Your competitive analysis will let you identify your current/direct and indirect/potential competition. It’s a good idea to create the matrix from two different perspectives, i.e. one from the customer’s point of view, and one from the business point of view, helping you build a full-fledged competitor comparison matrix.

2. Then you’ll have to determine certain categories or areas to compare yourself with your competition. Pricing, customer service, product quality, marketing, etc. are some of the most popular areas to compare in a competitive assessment matrix.

3. Now, on to the actual creation of the matrix. Use the columns on the left to write the names of your five major competitors, from top to bottom. You could also use separate tabs for separate competitors. Across the first row, left to right, list the categories or strategic areas you wish to compare (see below image). Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses (SWOT analysis) of each competitor on these parameters. Arrange your closest competitors next to you. Fill in your own company’s information last, building a detailed competitor mapping matrix.

4. Certain strategic areas may contain multiple variables, and it is not only okay but advisable to create separate matrices for them. For example, marketing can have a number of categories in itself including content marketing, paid advertising, inbound marketing, social media marketing, etc. These can be covered in separate competitive analysis charts.

5. Once you’ve created your matrix or matrices, it is time to determine the areas where your company is weaker than the competitors. These gaps are in fact opportunities for your company to improve its market position by working exactly where you’re lagging behind your competitors. Distribute it to the relevant teams in your organization as part of your overall competitive strategy and market intelligence workflow.

Five Competitive Matrix Analysis Templates/Examples

As mentioned before, there are multiple ways and templates for creating a competitive matrix. Let’s have a look at some common competition matrix examples.

1. Feature Comparison Matrix

A feature comparison matrix allows you to effortlessly compare your products with features of your competitors. As you can see in the image, there are rows of features and columns of competitors to compare the product mix available from each competitor. This competition matrix example is quite a useful comparison as it allows you to understand the gaps in your product, as well as the features that make your product offering unique in the competitive landscape.

Businesses can use various competition matrix templates or even competitor matrix templates to structure their analysis effectively and gain deeper insights.

2. Competitive Analysis Matrix

One of the most commonly used formats is a competitive analysis matrix. It gives you a bird’s eye view of how you compare with your competitors in various categories such as target customers, pricing, marketing strategy (both online and general), strengths, weaknesses, competitive advantage, etc. This is a quite comprehensive competitor comparison of you and your rivals and can help decide on changing an old strategy or creating a new business strategy.

Download competitive analysis template

3. Win/Loss Matrix

A win/loss matrix helps in identifying where your competitors stand as compared to your organization, in addition to their significance as a competitor. It can help you group your competitors as rivals, contenders, ankle-biters, and emergents, depending on the threat they pose to you. As its name suggests, this graph uses the win/loss rate of players in the competitive landscape to classify them. This competition matrix provides valuable insights, helping you seek out ways to increase your overall competitive market analysis success.

4. Competitive Landscape Overview Matrix

This is again a top-view of your entire competitive landscape. You can use your custom groupings, for example, legacy vs. emerging competitors, software vs. hardware competitors, direct vs. indirect competitors, and many more. A competitive position matrix visual representation graph is easy to understand and can even be distributed to non-technical individuals in your organization to give them an idea/quick overview of your position in the marketplace.

5. Review Tracker Matrix

Reviews are critical for any company, whether product-based or service-based, as they help understand what your customers are saying about you. This can help plan changes in the product, as well as a marketing strategy. What’s more important is understanding how your reviews compare with your rival’s. Using a review tracker matrix, you can see – at a glance – the types of reviews you get versus your competitors. It’s one of the most underused but valuable competitive intelligence analysis methods.

Competitors Comparison With Competitive Matrix

We’ve already outlined the steps for creating a competitive matrix; now, let’s explore its usage in competitor matrix comparison and competitive benchmarking.

Let’s say the image above is your competitive matrix. What competitive insights do we glean from it? When it comes to customization, your product comes out on top. In rapid delivery, you just have one competitor who’s as quick as you. Your operators are skilled as you provide training, which other competitors don’t. There’s one competitor whose product has a superior quality as compared to yours, and another one who offers a lower price than yours. Two competitors are better than you in terms of unique features. Finally, there’s one competitor that offers both onboard controls and installation, same as you.

Let’s say the image above is your competitive matrix. What competitive insights do we glean from it? When it comes to customization, your product comes out on top. In rapid delivery, you just have one competitor who’s as quick as you. Your operators are skilled as you provide training, which other competitors don’t. There’s one competitor whose product has a superior quality as compared to yours, and another one who offers a lower price than yours. Two competitors are better than you in terms of unique features. Finally, there’s one competitor that offers both onboard controls and installation, same as you.

Based on competition matrix, your company needs to take the following steps to outdo all your competitors:

• Enhance the quality of your product.
• Develop more unique features in your product. Form an internal team, set a timeline, and find available and affordable resources to help you get this done as quickly as possible.
• Improve your delivery system to make it faster.
• Find ways to minimize the final cost of your product.

Other steps that will be required as a part of your business strategy to outdo competitors will require a new marketing campaign to communicate the benefits of using your products more clearly to your competitors, making sure to cash in on the categories where you’re stronger than your competitors. You can also use this competitive matrix as an internal sales enablement and training tool, helping your sales team articulate your competitive advantage effectively.

The actual matrix you create will undoubtedly be longer and more detailed, but this competitor matrix sample gives you an idea of how to use it for competitors’ analysis.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is a Competitive Profile Matrix?

A competitive profile matrix is just another format of a competitive matrix. It helps you highlight the relative strengths and weaknesses as well as the value proposition of both your organization and your competitors. In addition, it helps uncover potential opportunities in the marketplace. Here’s how it looks:

A competitive profile matrix has 4 components, namely:

1. Critical Success Factors

These vary from company to company, but commonly include things like marketing, brand reputation, location, product quality, product range, customer service, customer loyalty, etc.

2. Weight

Each critical success factor is assigned a weightage from 0.1 to 1.0, depending on their importance. A lower weightage means that the factor is not particularly important in determining the success of a business, and a higher weightage means that the factor is critically important.

3. Score

The score assigned to each critical success factor signifies how strong that factor is. Multiplying the weight and score gives you a weighted score.

4. Total Score

The sum of all the weighted scores of each critical success factor gives you the total score.

What is the Use of a Competitor Matrix?

When created and analyzed properly, a competitive matrix will give you plenty of quantitative and qualitative data to back your business decisions. Elevating your business, outdoing your competitors, and emerging at the top of your market is the final goal, and thus the purpose. However, reaching this final goal requires the fulfillment of smaller goals or milestones, and that’s the true purpose of a competitor matrix.

Key benefits include:

• Developing or improving your Unique Value Proposition
• Improving your product by comparing it with those aspects or features of competitors’ products that customers value
• Capitalizing on competitors’ weaknesses
• Getting benchmarks, against which you’ll measure your growth
• Uncovering market segments that competitors haven’t gotten to
• Creating a new product category by identifying gaps between what your competitors offer and what the customers need

Can a competitive matrix be used for SWOT analysis?

Yes, a competitive matrix can be integrated with SWOT analysis to evaluate your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. You can plot SWOT components alongside competitors to highlight strategic advantages or vulnerabilities.

How does a competitive matrix help in identifying market gaps?

A competitive matrix helps reveal areas where your competitors are weak or absent, such as missing features, slower delivery, or poor customer service. These gaps signal potential opportunities to differentiate and improve your market position.

Conclusion

The key to being successful in any market segment is differentiation, and differentiation requires that you know yourself and your competitors inside out. That is the only way you can continually make your products and services more unique and distinctive, and deliver measurable benefits to your customers. A competitive matrix, whether it’s a competitive position matrix, competitive profile matrix, or a competitive assessment matrix, is a powerful tool to reveal all of this, and thus, a much-needed instrument in your journey to profitable and sustainable growth.

Looking to automate and enrich your competitive matrices with near-real-time intelligence?

Contify’s AI-powered market and competitive intelligence platform helps businesses track competitors, discover strategic insights, and build dynamic comparison dashboards, all from a single source of truth.

Get in touch with us to learn how Contify can simplify your competitor tracking and strategic analysis.