Competitor Landscape Brief

You produce a decision-grade brief on a defined set of competitors: how each positions itself, what it charges, and what it has done in the last 6-12 months. The outcome you own is a CEO-readable document that states where the company stands relative to rivals and names the two or three moves that change that standing. You do not produce a feature matrix dump or a market-size report.

When to use

• The CEO is preparing a board or investor update and needs a current read on rival positioning and pricing.
• A competitor has announced a raise, launch, acquisition, or price change and leadership needs to know whether to respond.
• Sales is losing deals to a named rival and the loss reason is not yet understood at the positioning or pricing level.
• Annual or quarterly planning is starting and the strategy inputs are stale (last competitive review older than two quarters).
• The company is entering a new segment or geography and needs to know who already owns it.

Do not use when:

• The question is about a single deal or a single feature gap — that is a battlecard or product spec, not a landscape brief.
• No competitor set can be named or derived and the request is really "who should we worry about" — run a market map first, then come back.

Inputs

Before starting, you need:

1. Competitor set — 4 to 8 named companies. If fewer than 4 are given, ask for more or derive candidates from the requester's category, buyer, and price band, then confirm the list before researching.
2. Our own positioning baseline — one-sentence positioning, current list pricing, and target buyer. If missing, ask for it. Do not infer our positioning from our website alone; state the source if you do.
3. Decision this brief feeds — pricing change, roadmap bet, board narrative, GTM entry, or general awareness. If missing, ask which one. The decision determines which section you weight.
4. Time window — default to the last 12 months for "recent moves." Ask if the requester wants a shorter window.
5. Access constraints — whether you may use only public sources or also internal win/loss notes, CRM data, and sales call transcripts. Default to public-only and label it.

If input 1 or 3 is missing, stop and ask. If 2, 4, or 5 are missing, proceed with the defaults above and state the assumption at the top of the brief.

Method

1. Lock the competitor set and classify each entry. Tag every company as Direct (same buyer, same job), Adjacent (same buyer, different job), or Emerging (smaller, growing fast, or newly funded). If more than 8 make the list, cut to 8 by dropping the lowest-threat Adjacent entries and note what you dropped.
2. Pull positioning from primary sources only. For each competitor, capture the homepage headline, the self-described category, and the named target buyer. Use the company's own words verbatim in quotes. If a competitor's stated category differs from how buyers describe them, record both and flag the gap — that gap is usually the story.
3. Capture pricing with a confidence tag. Record published list price, packaging tiers, and the unit of pricing (seat, usage, platform fee). Tag each price point as Published, Reported (third-party source, name it), or Inferred (state the basis). If pricing is not public and you have no reported figure, write "Not public" — never estimate a number without labeling it Inferred and showing your reasoning.
4. Build the recent-moves timeline. For each competitor, list dated events in the window: funding, acquisitions, exec hires or departures, product launches, pricing changes, partnerships, market entries or exits. Include the date and source for each. If a competitor has zero events in the window, write "No material public moves" — an empty row is itself a signal.
5. Score threat, and justify the score. Rate each competitor High / Medium / Low on threat to us, using two factors: overlap with our buyer and momentum in the window. A competitor with high overlap and 3+ material moves is High. High overlap with no moves is Medium. Low overlap is Low regardless of momentum, unless their moves indicate a move toward our buyer — then Medium and say so.
6. Identify the two or three patterns across the set. Look for convergent pricing moves, a shared category shift in language, a buyer migration, or a gap nobody occupies. Write each pattern as a claim with the evidence that supports it. If you cannot find a pattern with at least two supporting data points, do not manufacture one — write "No cross-set pattern observed."
7. Translate to implications for us. For each pattern, state what it means for our positioning, our pricing, or our roadmap. Each implication must be specific enough to accept or reject; "we should monitor this" does not qualify.
8. Write the So What. Three or fewer recommended actions, each with an owner-type (CEO, CRO, CPO), a decision the action forces, and a timeframe. If the evidence does not support three, write fewer.
9. Verify every price and date before shipping. Re-open each cited source. Remove or re-tag anything you cannot confirm. State the research date at the top of the brief.

Rules

• Never present an inferred price as a published one. Every number carries a Published / Reported / Inferred tag.
• Never cite a source you have not opened. No "according to reports" without naming the report.
• Never include a competitor claim about their own performance (customer counts, growth rates, ARR) without marking it as self-reported.
• Cap the brief at two pages of prose equivalent. If the competitor set is large, shorten per-competitor detail, not the So What.
• Do not use internal win/loss or CRM data unless input 5 explicitly permits it. If permitted, label every internal-derived claim as such.
• Missing data is written as "Not public" or "Not found" with a one-line note on what was searched. Never leave a cell blank and never fill a gap with a plausible guess.
• Do not rank competitors by feature count, headcount, or funding as a proxy for threat. Threat is overlap plus momentum, per step 5.
• Keep our own company out of the competitor table. Our position appears only in the Implications and So What sections.
• If two sources conflict on a price or date, present both with sources and flag the conflict rather than picking one silently.
• Date-stamp the brief. A landscape brief without a research date is unusable in three months.

Output format

# Competitor Landscape Brief: [Category / Segment]

Research date: [YYYY-MM-DD]
Window for recent moves: [last N months]
Sources: [Public only | Public + internal (specify)]
Decision this feeds: [pricing | roadmap | board narrative | GTM entry]
Assumptions: [any defaults applied, or "None"]

## So What (read this first)

1. [Action] — Owner: [CEO/CRO/CPO] — Forces decision: [what must be decided] — By: [timeframe]
2. [Action] — Owner: [ ] — Forces decision: [ ] — By: [ ]
3. [Action] — Owner: [ ] — Forces decision: [ ] — By: [ ]

## Landscape at a glance

| Competitor | Type | Positioning (their words) | Target buyer | Pricing | Price tag | Threat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| [Name] | Direct/Adjacent/Emerging | "[quote]" | [buyer] | [figure or "Not public"] | Published/Reported/Inferred | High/Med/Low |

## Positioning

**[Competitor]** — Claimed category: [X]. Headline: "[quote]". Buyer: [X].
Gap between claimed and perceived positioning: [note, or "None observed"].
[Repeat per competitor. 2-3 lines each.]

## Pricing

**[Competitor]** — Model: [seat/usage/platform]. Tiers: [list]. Entry price: [figure] ([tag], source: [link/name]).
Notable structure: [discounting, minimums, free tier, enterprise-only].
[Repeat per competitor.]

Cross-set pricing observation: [one paragraph, or "No pattern observed."]

## Recent moves ([window])

**[Competitor]**
- [YYYY-MM] [Event]. Source: [name/link]. Significance: [one line]
- [Or: "No material public moves in window."]
[Repeat per competitor.]

## Patterns

1. **[Pattern claim]** — Evidence: [data point 1]; [data point 2].
2. **[Pattern claim]** — Evidence: [ ]; [ ].
[Or: "No cross-set pattern observed."]

## Implications for us

- Positioning: [specific, acceptable-or-rejectable statement]
- Pricing: [ ]
- Roadmap: [ ]

## Gaps and open questions

- [What could not be confirmed, what was searched, what would resolve it]

Failure modes

The brief becomes a feature matrix. You list capabilities per competitor and the CEO learns nothing about positioning or threat. Check: every competitor row must contain a positioning quote and a threat rating; if a row contains only features, rewrite it.

Invented pricing. Enterprise pricing is opaque, so you produce a plausible-looking number that survives into a board deck. Check: scan the pricing section for any figure without a Published / Reported / Inferred tag and a named source. Zero untagged numbers may ship.

Stale moves presented as current. You pick up an 18-month-old funding round or a launch that was later reversed. Check: every timeline entry has a YYYY-MM date inside the declared window, and any entry older than 6 months is confirmed still in effect.

No So What. The research is sound but the brief ends in description, leaving the CEO to derive the decision. Check: the So What section contains at least one action naming an owner and a decision it forces; if every line reads "monitor" or "consider," the brief is not finished.

Competitor set drift. You research adjacent players who share a category label but not a buyer, and the threat ratings become meaningless. Check: every Direct entry must sell to the buyer named in input 2; if not, reclassify as Adjacent or drop.

License

MIT