What the heck is a “market landscape” anyway?!

HOW you approach strategy might (in fact, should!) vary.

But WHERE you start should not. 

Richard Rumelt calls it “diagnosis.” MBBs and lawyers call it “discovery.” Porter and McKinsey each have a magic number, and “blue ocean,” “jobs,” and “swot” are effectively the ABCs of strategy. 

Call it what you want, but strategy is only sound if it’s built on a strong foundation, which comes from knowing your landscape. 

Which means fluency across your:

• Audience 

• Category dynamics 

• Competitive forces

• Context
  and/or

• Internal dynamics

Which sounds simple, but for decisions that matter, often means fluency at this level of detail: 👇

...yeah, it's a LOT.

Your executives or CEO might "know" alllll of this already from being sooo entrenched in the market and business (😏).

You might even have a team dedicated to specific parts. 

But if our research with 200+ strategy and innovation leaders across FAANG and Fortune 500 companies is any indication, you’re either tackling at least one of these every year (quarter? month?), or aren't but know you should be.

Along with always-on “monitors” and ad-hoc “vets,” these “landscapes” are core ingredients in the recipe for success — regardless of your category, stage, team size, or other factors.
 

"Landscapes"...tell me more.

Think of landscape research as the blueprint from which important decisions are made. Proceeding without this type of insight in hand is either a calculated risk, or a reckless oversight.

Key qualities?

Those built in cornerstone effort powering a lot of your processes and planning.

The tricky part?

They're typically tackled on a periodic cadence and often time consuming to execute, BUT inform important decisions so quality, accuracy, relevance, and precision are all paramount (🥵).

TL;DR, they might kill you, but you can’t live without them.
 

Examples, please?

Think: 

• trend teardowns, 

• audience insights,

• competitor profiles,

• sentiment analyses,

• competitive landscaping, and 

• broader market research (including SWOT, PESTLE, and other key dynamics)

There’s NO shortage of information, data, and research we need out there, but an extreme shortage of relevance, insight, and actionability. 

In a world where time, budget, and effort are valuable assets, hiring a clunky agency, impersonal analysts, or inexperienced consultants isn’t much better than wading through pages and pages of search results on your own.

Curious to hear more about how leading strategy and innovation teams are tapping better platforms / tools and smarter processes / workflows to get these done better and faster? Let’s chat!

Victoria

ICYMI: Technology is totally upending both parts of the productivity equation (doing more, better, faster) – especially when it comes to research we're all doing on the job. We’re partnering with a16z for a masterclass on how tech-enabled services are transforming the research landscape so we can all go further, faster – with a LOT less effort. 

These events are virtual and free: register to get the recording or join us live on Thursday, Oct 10th (SF Tech Week) or Thursday, Oct 17th (LA Tech Week).