Case 02 / 04

Nine competitors, one frame.

Year
2026
Role
Summer Associate
Type
Market analysis
Price, features, market communication
3 decisions

析 xī · Analysis

Situation

The product was priced against a market that was known by reputation rather than by data. Feature comparisons came out of sales calls, which means they came out of whatever the last prospect happened to mention.

Nobody in the room could say with confidence where the product sat on price relative to the German market.

9 competitors in the German market, known by reputation rather than by data

Task

Put nine competitors in the German market side by side on price and feature depth, in a form that survives a management discussion and can be updated later by somebody else.

Approach

  1. 01

    Set the frame before collecting anything. Which nine, and on what criterion those nine and not others. Segment overlap and addressable customer, not company size.

  2. 02

    Collected from primary sources only. Public price lists, trial accounts, product documentation. Every entry carries where it came from and on which date.

  3. 03

    Separated list prices from negotiated prices in the matrix. A published figure and a figure from a sales conversation are not the same kind of number and were never averaged.

  4. 04

    Built the feature matrix with a yes or no column plus a note column, so that a yes can never hide a limitation.

  5. 05

    Left the cells empty where no public data existed, and presented them empty. Then translated the matrix into three recommendations.

Result

3 decisions

Price, features, market communication

The analysis fed three decisions. A price adjustment, a reordered feature roadmap, and a change in how the product is described in market communication.

  • 2criteria, price and feature depth
  • 1source and one date on every entry in the matrix
  • 3 of 3decisions traceable to a matrix row and its source

How it was measured

Not a percentage, a trace. Each of the three decisions can be followed back to a specific row in the matrix and from there to its source. That is the test I hold this kind of work to, because a market analysis that changes nothing is a document, not a result.

What I learned

Half the value sat in the empty cells. Where nobody in the market publishes a price, that silence is itself a finding about how the market sells.

I nearly filled those cells with careful estimates. The matrix would have looked complete and been useless, because an estimate and a fact look identical once they sit in the same table.