How do you leverage Competitive Intelligence to influence the Product Roadmap?

In my opinion, competitive intelligence is one of the most impactful ways product marketing can help inform product roadmaps and ensure your company has a differentiated and unique offering in the market. By digging into what competitors exist, what their value props are, what feature sets they offer, how much they charge, etc. competitive intelligence can become a critical resource for informing what to build, why to build it, who you're building for and how to message it. Plus, doing competiti ...Read More

Competitive Insight impacts the roadmap in 2 ways. 1. It can be used to identify competitive strengths and weaknesses. That insight can be used to steer the roadmap while weighing up what is important to address and what can be ignored. 2. CI can als be used for pricing and packaging decisions. Are you a price leader or leaving money on the table? how are other providers their terms of service and payment conditions. subject to where entitlements are tracked (in the app or the billing system), t ...Read More

I would first interview some sales reps, customer success managers, and customers to validate and possibly support the competitive intelligence received with data and quotes. This research will help you gain more depth on the situation and build a comprehensive case to influence the product roadmap and address the competitive threat more strategically. Here are some things to look for in your research: The competitor could be solving customer pain points using a feature that is either nonexisten ...Read More

Leveraging competitive intelligence deeply enhances your credibility in Product Roadmap conversations. However, competitors and the operating environment could also evolve and change. For example: Your key competitor could pivot to a different product focus area. Your company could move to a different segment, e.g. B2B vs B2C or Enterprise vs Mid-market. Your industry or regulatory body could shift and change to a new direction. New competitors could move into your space. While it is key to foll ...Read More