What is a Competitive Analysis Matrix?

A Competitive Analysis Matrix is a structured framework for evaluating how well competitors satisfy customer needs in a given market. From a Jobs To Be Done perspective, this matrix doesn't just compare product features—it measures how effectively different solutions help customers execute the steps in their jobs. This approach provides deeper insights than traditional competitive analysis by focusing on job execution outcomes rather than solution characteristics.

The matrix typically organizes competitors on one axis and customer job steps or needs on the other, with cells containing quantitative or qualitative assessments of performance. This structure creates a comprehensive view of the competitive landscape through the lens of customer jobs, revealing opportunities and threats that traditional feature-based comparisons often miss.

Why is a competitive analysis approach to competitive analysis important?

Traditional competitive analysis often focuses on feature comparisons, price positioning, or market share metrics. A Jobs To Be Done approach offers several key advantages:

1. Reveals true competitive threats

By focusing on job satisfaction rather than product categories, this approach identifies non-obvious competitors who satisfy the same customer jobs through different means.

2. Identifies genuine differentiation opportunities

Understanding where competitors fall short in satisfying customer needs reveals opportunities for meaningful differentiation beyond incremental feature improvements.

3. Predicts competitive evolution

By monitoring how competitors address job steps over time, companies can anticipate strategic moves and market evolution more accurately than through feature tracking alone.

4. Guides strategic resource allocation

Knowing where companies innovate and struggle helps companies focus innovation resources on areas with the greatest opportunity for competitive advantage.

5. Creates stronger value propositions

Understanding competitive performance on job steps enables more compelling value propositions that highlight genuine advantages in job satisfaction.

What are the key components of an effective Competitive Analysis Matrix?

A comprehensive Jobs To Be Done Competitive Analysis Matrix includes these key components:

1. Customer Job Framework

The foundation of the matrix is a clear definition of the customer's job:

• The overall job customers are trying to accomplish
• The sequence of steps customers take to execute the job
• The specific needs within each job step
• The importance of different steps and needs to customers
• The segments of customers with distinct job patterns

This job framework provides the structure for competitive evaluation.

2. Competitor Identification

A complete set of competitors who help customers execute the job:

• Direct competitors with similar solutions
• Indirect competitors with different approaches to the same job
• Emerging competitors with innovative job satisfaction methods
• Internal solutions customers develop themselves
• Alternative processes that don't involve purchasing products

This comprehensive competitor identification ensures no threats are overlooked.

3. Performance Assessment Criteria

Clear metrics for evaluating competitive performance:

• How quickly competitors help customers execute job steps
• How accurately their solutions enable job completion
• How much effort is required from customers
• How consistently the solutions perform across contexts
• How completely they address all aspects of the job

These criteria focus analysis on outcomes that matter to customers.

4. Data Collection Methodology

Systematic approaches to gathering performance data:

• Customer surveys rating competitor performance
• User testing measuring job execution metrics
• Expert evaluations based on established criteria
• Competitive intelligence from market sources
• Analysis of customer reviews and feedback

These methods ensure assessments are based on evidence rather than assumptions.

5. Visualization Format

Clear presentation of competitive insights:

• Matrix structure showing competitors against job steps
• Color coding indicating performance levels
• Numerical ratings for quantitative comparisons
• Trend indicators showing performance evolution
• Highlight mechanisms for key insights

This visualization makes complex competitive data accessible and actionable.

How do you create an effective Competitive Analysis Matrix?

1. Define the customer job framework

Start by establishing the structure for analysis:

• Develop a comprehensive job map with all customer steps
• Identify specific needs within key job steps
• Determine which steps and needs are most important to customers
• Segment customers based on job execution patterns
• Select the job steps and needs to include in the matrix

This framework ensures your analysis focuses on what matters most to customers.

2. Identify the relevant competitors

Develop a complete list of solutions that help customers execute the job:

• Research direct competitors in your product category
• Identify alternative approaches that satisfy the same job
• Discover emerging solutions that might address the job differently
• Include internal solutions customers develop themselves
• Consider service-based alternatives to products

This comprehensive identification ensures no competitive threats are overlooked.

3. Develop evaluation criteria

Create specific metrics for assessing competitive performance:

• Define what "good" performance looks like for each job step
• Establish rating scales for qualitative assessments (e.g., 1-5)
• Determine quantitative metrics for job execution (e.g., time, error rate)
• Create consistent evaluation protocols across competitors
• Design customer research questions that elicit comparative insights

These criteria ensure consistent and meaningful competitive assessments.

4. Collect competitive performance data

Gather data through multiple complementary methods:

• Conduct customer surveys rating competitor performance
• Perform user testing to measure job execution metrics
• Review public information about competitor capabilities
• Analyze customer reviews and feedback
• Engage industry experts for informed assessments

This multi-method approach creates a more complete and reliable picture of competitive performance.

5. Construct the matrix and analyze patterns

Organize data into the matrix format and identify insights:

• Create a grid with competitors on one axis and job steps/needs on the other
• Enter performance ratings for each competitor-job combination
• Color-code cells to highlight performance patterns
• Calculate average performance across job steps
• Identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats

This structured analysis reveals patterns that might not be apparent from unorganized data.

6. Validate findings and implications

Test your analysis with customers and stakeholders:

• Review findings with customers to confirm accuracy
• Share insights with internal experts for validation
• Test competitive assessments with market data
• Verify opportunity identification with customer research
• Refine the analysis based on feedback

This validation ensures your competitive insights are accurate and actionable.

What frameworks help structure Competitive Analysis Matrices?

The Job Step Matrix

This framework evaluates competitors against job steps:

• Rows represent the sequential steps in the customer's job
• Columns represent different competitors
• Cells contain performance ratings for each step
• Summary rows show overall performance across the job
• Highlight cells indicate significant performance gaps

This structure reveals how competitors perform across the entire customer job.

The Need Satisfaction Matrix

This more detailed framework evaluates competitors against specific needs:

• Rows represent individual needs within job steps
• Columns represent different competitors
• Cells contain satisfaction ratings for each innovation sections group needs by job step
• Weighted scores reflect need importance

This structure provides deeper insight into specific competitive strengths and weaknesses.

The Opportunity Score Matrix

This framework focuses specifically on innovation opportunities:

• Rows represent customer needs
• Columns include importance, satisfaction, and opportunity scores
• Additional columns show competitor performance
• Sorted by opportunity score to highlight priorities

Color coding indicates competitive analysis structure directly connects competitive analysis to innovation priorities.

The Segment Performance Matrix

This framework shows how competitors perform across customer segments:

• Rows represent job steps or needs
• Columns represent competitors
• Separate matrices for different customer segments
• Comparison view showing segment-specific performance
• Highlight cells showing segment-specific opportunities

This structure reveals how competition varies across different customer groups.

The Performance Evolution Matrix

This framework tracks competitive performance over time:

• Rows represent job steps or needs
• Columns represent competitors
• Multiple versions for different time periods
• Trend indicators showing performance changes
• Predictive section for anticipated future performance

This structure reveals how the competitive landscape is evolving and where it might be heading.

What are common challenges in creating Competitive Analysis Matrices?

Confirmation bias

Teams often overestimate their own performance and underestimate competitors, leading to skewed analysis. Using objective customer data and third-party assessments helps overcome this bias.

Feature-centered thinking

Many analyses focus on comparing features rather than job satisfaction outcomes. Maintaining discipline around job steps and customer needs is essential for meaningful insights.

Static analysis

One-time competitive assessments quickly become outdated in rapidly changing markets. Regular updates and monitoring of competitive evolution are necessary for sustained value.

Insufficient competitor identification

Limiting analysis to direct, obvious competitors misses emerging threats from alternative approaches. Comprehensive identification of all job satisfaction methods is critical.

Overreliance on internal opinions

Competitive assessments based primarily on internal perspectives often miss critical insights. Customer data should be the primary source for performance evaluations.

How do you use the insights from a Competitive Analysis Matrix?

1. Identify strategic opportunities

Use the matrix to discover areas for competitive advantage:

• Target job steps where all competitors perform poorly
• Identify needs with high importance but low satisfaction across competitors
• Focus on steps where your capabilities provide natural advantages
• Discover unaddressed job steps that could create new categories
• Find opportunities to integrate across poorly connected steps

These targeted opportunities guide strategic investment decisions.

2. Develop differentiation strategies

Create approaches that leverage competitive insights:

• Design solutions that outperform competitors on key job steps
• Develop messaging that highlights competitive weaknesses
• Create positioning around underserved needs
• Build capabilities that address competitive blind spots
• Target customer segments underserved by current competitors

These differentiation strategies create sustainable competitive advantages.

3. Anticipate competitive threats

Use the matrix to prepare for competitive responses:

• Identify where competitors are likely to improve next
• Predict how emerging technologies might affect job execution
• Monitor competitor investments for signals of strategic shifts
• Analyze acquisition patterns for capability development clues
• Track talent movement for indications of new focus areas

This anticipation helps companies stay ahead of competitive evolution.

4. Guide product roadmaps

Translate competitive insights into development priorities:

• Focus development on areas with competitive advantage potential
• Address vulnerabilities where competitors outperform
• Sequence initiatives based on strategic importance
• Develop capabilities that create barriers to competitive imitation
• Balance immediate competitive response with long-term advantage

These roadmap priorities ensure development resources maximize competitive impact.

5. Inform marketing and sales strategies

Leverage competitive insights in customer-facing activities:

• Develop messaging that highlights competitive advantages in job execution
• Train sales teams on competitive strengths and weaknesses
• Create comparisons that focus on job outcomes rather than features
• Develop case studies demonstrating superior job satisfaction
• Position offerings around underserved job steps

These customer-facing strategies maximize the market impact of competitive advantages.

How do you measure the effectiveness of your Competitive Analysis Matrix?

Strategic Impact Metrics

These measure how the analysis influences strategic decisions:

• Strategy adjustment rate - How often competitive insights lead to strategic changes
• Investment alignment - Percentage of resources allocated based on competitive opportunities
• Decision confidence - Leadership confidence in competitive-based decisions
• Prediction accuracy - How well competitive evolution predictions match reality
• Strategic coherence - Consistency competitive analysis competitive insights

Effective competitive analysis should directly influence strategic choices.

Market Performance Metrics

These measure how competitive strategies affect market outcomes:

• Win rate trends - Changes in competitive win/loss rates
• Share of voice - Recognition for leadership in key job steps
• Customer preference - Selection rates in competitive evaluations
• Price premium sustainability - Ability to maintain higher prices based on job satisfaction
• Competitive displacement - Success in replacing incumbent solutions

These metrics indicate whether competitive strategies are succeeding in the market.

Organizational Alignment Metrics

These measure how well the organization incorporates competitive insights:

• Competitive awareness - Team understanding of competitive landscape
• Strategic alignment - Consistency of team actions with competitive strategy
• Responsive adaptation - Speed of response to competitive changes
• Customer advocacy - How effectively teams communicate competitive advantages
• Insight distribution - How widely competitive insights are shared and used

These metrics reveal whether competitive analysis creates organizational impact.

Analytical Quality Metrics

These measure the accuracy and value of the competitive analysis itself:

• Customer validation - How well analysis matches customer experiences
• Predictive accuracy - How often competitive predictions prove correct
• Insight novelty - Percentage of insights not previously known
• Actionability - How directly insights translate to specific actions
• Comprehensiveness - Coverage of relevant competitors and job steps

These metrics help improve the quality of competitive analysis over time.

How does Jobs To Be Done Competitive Analysis differ from traditional approaches?

Versus Feature Comparison Charts

Traditional feature charts compare product specifications without connecting to customer value. Jobs To Be Done analysis evaluates how features contribute to job execution, revealing which differences actually matter to customers.

Versus SWOT Analysis

Traditional SWOT analysis often focuses on internal perceptions of competitive position. Jobs To Be Done analysis grounds, strength, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in customer job satisfaction data.

Versus Market Share Analysis

Traditional share analysis assumes competitors are limited to the same product category. Jobs To Be Done analysis identifies all solutions that help execute the job, revealing non-obvious competitors and threats.

Versus Price Positioning Maps

Traditional positioning maps often plot competitors on price and quality axes. Jobs To Be Done analysis creates more nuanced positioning based on specific job steps and needs, revealing differentiation opportunities beyond price-quality trade-offs.

How thrv helps with Competitive Analysis Matrices

thrv provides specialized methodologies and tools to help companies develop comprehensive competitive analysis matrices centered on customer jobs and needs. The thrv platform enables teams to structure analysis around job steps, collect and organize competitive performance data, visualize competitive landscapes, identify strategic opportunities, and track competitive evolution over time.

For organizations struggling with undifferentiated products, unclear competitive positioning, or reactive competitive responses, thrv's approach to Competitive Analysis provides a clear path to strategic advantage based on a deeper understanding of how competitors do and don't satisfy customer jobs. The result is more focused innovation, stronger differentiation, and sustainable competitive advantage—all derived from understanding competition through the lens of customer jobs.