The Persistent Pragmatic: Know Your Competition but Choose Your Own Tack — The Science of Sailing and Product Management Part III

This week we are exploring the perils of competitive analysis. Something that can leave you floundering in both sailing and product management if you aren’t pragmatic and objective in your approach.

You need to keep an eye on your competition but playing catch up is not a good strategy in product management. Especially if you are relying on your competition to point you in the right direction.

Hello and welcome to the Persistent Pragmatic, where we explore all things product management, product marketing, and the Pragmatic Marketing framework.

The autumn sail racing season is upon us and it is time to don our BR1 suits and lee ho in the pouring rain. I published an article last year on the many things product managers can learn from racing sail boats and our first race of the season inspired me to revisit these words of wisdom and share them again in more manageable chunks.

Racing a sailboat is MUCH different than just going out for a sail and I have learned many lessons watching my skippers and crewmates that have helped me grow both as a product manager and a head of products.

If you would like to read last week’s installment you can click HERE and learn about how being first over the line doesn’t necessarily mean you are a market leader or the winner of a sailing race!

Just because that is the tack someone else took, doesn’t mean it’s the right one.

Sailing races don’t take place on tracks. Obviously. They take place on courses and courses are defined by marks. How you get from mark to mark is up to you. If you looked at the GPS trail of two different boats in the same race you would be likely to see two totally different paths taken to get from one mark to the next.

It is up to your Skipper and the Navigator (sometimes the same person and sometimes not) to figure out what they think is the best way to get to the next mark based on the wind speed, its direction, any tidal forces at play, your crew and its composition, any other traffic on the water, and your particular boat.

(Sound familiar? Congratulations you have just done an Asset Assessment!)

It is interesting to see, when you are in the race, the many different tacks people take to get to the same place. The first couple times I saw this it was a bit confusing and I often ask my skippers why they made the decisions they did and why someone might have done it some other how.

The answers often come down to really knowing the boat, the conditions, and the crew. And they don’t really know, or care, why someone else went a different way. Sometimes the tack pays off and sometimes someone beats you to the mark. The skipper makes the best decision they can based on what they definitely know.

And what they definitely do not know is what is going on in the competition’s boat. There have been a few times when my skippers thought their adversaries were mad in the choices we saw them make during a race. To the point where one or two ran aground and then ran into us!

A bit confused? Would you like to know what a good competitive landscape analysis can do for your business or need someone to do it for you? I can help you with that. I have been a product manager and leader for 18 years. Get in touch on the ol’ linked in to find out how my approach to product management can help your product succeed.

It looked like those boats were going to win, but if we had taken the course they had, we would have ended up in the mud with them.

A sailing race can be a long game. You’ve got bits where you might have to sprint like mad and others where you have a nice long tack to play cat and mouse with your opponents. Each leg of the race factors into the next. How and when you get to a mark is strategic. It might be better to get there after everyone else so you don’t have to fight for water getting around the mark. Especially if you don’t have the resources to get there first.

The Take Away

The take away for product managers? Just because your competition is doing something, that doesn’t mean you have to crash tack in a completely different direction to copy them.

You are making some very dangerous assumptions if you do: that they have all the facts about the market to have made the right decision, that they are equipped in the same way you are with the same assets to exploit, that they have the same wealth of experience as you and your team.

And all the while you have your eye on the competition, you have your eye OFF the market. No one wins by playing catch up.

So why look at your competition at all? LOTS of reasons!

• What needs are they not meeting for their customers?
• What niches are they not exploiting?
• Are they selling the right problem?
• What segments have they not penetrated?
• How usable is their product and how easy is it for customers to buy?
• Any many many more!

Choose your tack and set your sails because you know it is the best direction based on your deep knowledge of the market. Look for those gaps your competition has left exposed and those markets they have left under served. It takes a lot of confidence and skill to stay the course in the face of competitive trends. And that definitely doesn’t get easier. You just get better at it.