A competitor list may live in someone's head: the names met at a trade fair or the ones a salesperson keeps hearing. The decision here is narrower and earlier than any positioning exercise: which companies does a buyer in this market really put next to your product, and how sure can anyone be of that list?
We start from the buyer's side, not from your own list: how a purchaser in the chosen market describes the need, which terms they would type, and which names come up when they do. Candidates are grouped into those that solve the same job in the same way, those that solve it differently, and those that only overlap in part of the range. Every company on the map carries the reason it was placed there and the source it was read from.
The map is a view of the reviewed sources at the time of review. It does not claim to be the full market, and a company missing from it may simply not appear in public material.
Needs a defensible statement of who the product competes with. The map separates what is read in sources from what is our inference, so the claim in the deck can be traced.
Needs to see which competing brands already sit on the same shelves or catalogues. Emphasis falls on where each brand is listed and how its range is presented.
Needs to know whether the competitors from the home market are present and whether local names exist that the team has never heard of. Candidates are searched from the buyer's side in the target market.
Where a competitor states a share or revenue figure itself, it is recorded as stated by the company and labelled as such; otherwise it is unavailable.
How buyers actually shortlist is inferred from what is public. We do not interview buyers or covertly approach competitors.
Positioning, entry and pricing decisions are separate. The map is an input to them and stops there.
The order matters because each step corrects the one before it.
Product category names can differ by market and by buyer role. We agree the terms, the market boundary and the customer type before any name is collected.
Search results, trade and industry directories, event exhibitor lists, marketplace category pages and the competitors' own customer-facing pages are read separately so that one source does not dominate.
A company stays on the map only if its public material shows an offer a buyer could substitute for yours. Look-alikes that serve another customer type are moved to an adjacent group, not dropped silently.
Names you gave us that the sources do not support, and areas where little public material exists, are listed as open questions.
Research reports what can be established from public and provided sources. It is not a guarantee about a counterparty's future conduct and not legal advice.
It helps, because we test it, but it is not required. Names you supply are recorded as client-provided until the sources support them.
Only where a buyer in your market could realistically choose them, and those are shown as a separate group with the reason.
No. It is a dated map of the reviewed sources.
No obligation. We read your request and reply with a straight answer.
Tell us what you need to find out and by when. We confirm scope before any work starts.
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