B2B competitor analysis: what it really says about your position

If you run a B2B company, you probably know your competitors by name. That is not enough. Competitive analysis only begins when you can answer why a client chose them instead of you, and whether it was even a conscious choice. In our practice, based on around 60 B2B projects, we see that the biggest problem is a lack of decisions that follow, rather than a lack of data from that data.

B2B competitive analysis: where to start

Start with the situation where the client is actually comparing offers. A client from the manufacturing sector described how his boss asked: why didn't we choose the cheaper offer from the competitor? And then it turned out that nobody could answer. In B2B, offer comparison happens when someone at the client's company has to justify the choice of supplier to their boss. This means your competitive analysis must cover not only marketing communication, but also what the buying journey looks like on the client's side: who makes the decision, what data they collect, what they search for, what they ask about in an email.

It is worth distinguishing two levels of analysis. The first is the market level: who is even considered when the client looks for a solution. The second is the offer level: what exactly they compare when they narrow the list down to two or three suppliers. Most companies only do the second level and are surprised when they lose tenders to companies they had not previously considered.

Before you compare offers, it is worth starting with a marketing audit, which organizes what you already know about the market and reveals gaps in your data. Without this step, competitive analysis turns into collecting trivia.

How to choose the right competitors to compare

The most common mistake is comparing yourself only with companies that look similar. In B2B, a competitor can also be a provider of an alternative solution, for example a company implementing a system that replaces your service, or the client's internal team that will "do it themselves".

Authors dealing with strategic marketing point out that competitive advantage arises when a company has an advantage in one area that is not offset by a weakness in another (Tomczak, Reinecke, Kuss, Strategic Marketing, 2018, chapter 4). This matters because it means you do not have to be better at everything. You need to know which area you are better in and whether the client notices it.

A practical list of competitors should include three groups:

• Direct - companies with a similar scope of services and a similar target client.
• Indirect - companies solving the same problem with a different tool (for example software instead of a service).
• Internal alternative - what the client does themselves before they even start looking for a supplier.

Assign specific names to each group. If you cannot, it means your competitive analysis will be based on guesswork.

Competitor benchmarking: what to measure and what not to

In B2B, benchmarking often comes down to comparing LinkedIn follower counts and Google rankings. That is not enough to predict anything. It is worth basing your analysis on what actually influences the purchasing decision.

The benchmarking literature emphasizes that the key is to first define the areas of comparison, and only then select competitors (Kreutzer, Benchmarking, Springer Gabler, Wiesbaden 2019, p. 27). In other words: first the question "what do I want to compare", then "with whom".

A practical set of areas to compare in B2B:

What not to measure? Follower counts as a goal in themselves. In B2B, organic reach rarely translates directly into the number of inbound inquiries. It is better to check whether a competitor appears in results for the keywords your customer uses when searching for a solution.

If you want to organize these areas into a coherent action plan, it helps to have a B2B marketing strategy that connects the findings from your competitive analysis with a real budget and team.

How to analyze B2B competition in practice: five steps

The sequence below works for service and manufacturing companies, regardless of the size of the marketing team.

Step 1: Gather data from the market, not from impressions

Start with what is publicly available: competitors' websites, their offers, price lists, social media communication, job postings (they reveal the direction of growth), registry filings. Note facts, not opinions.

Step 2: Compare purchase paths

Go through the buying process at a competitor the way a customer would. Note how long it takes to get in touch, what questions they ask, what the first response looks like. This gives you more than analyzing the website alone.

Step 3: Identify the dimensions of advantage

Set what you do better against what you do worse. Return to the competitive advantage model: an advantage in one area is enough if it is not offset by a weakness in another (Tomczak et al., 2018). Note which area you are clearly better in and whether the customer sees it.

Step 4: Check whether the customer notices it

The weakest point in most analyses. You may offer better service, but if the client does not experience it at the selection stage, it does not matter. Ask a few clients why they chose you over a competitor. The answers can be surprising.

Step 5: Turn findings into decisions

Every finding should have a decision assigned to it: what we change in communication, what in the offer, what in the sales process. If a finding does not lead to a decision, it is just an observation, not a finding.

Most common mistakes in competitor analysis

In our practice, based on around 60 B2B projects, the same problems keep coming up:

• Analysis done once a year. The market changes faster. It is better to have a shorter but regular review than a thick document once every twelve months.
• Focus on communication, skipping the process. A client chooses not because you have a nicer website, but because it is easier to work with you.
• No own data. If you do not know how many clients you lost and to whom, competitor analysis is guesswork.
• Comparing yourself to everyone. A list of 15 competitors blurs the findings. It is better to focus on three with whom you realistically compete for the same client.

A separate challenge is treating competitive analysis as a marketing department task. In B2B, purchasing decisions happen in conversation, so insights from salespeople are often more valuable than what is publicly visible.

How often to run competitive analysis

In B2B, a two-track rhythm works well: a short review once a quarter and a full analysis once a year. The quarterly review covers what changes fastest: new offers, price changes, new campaigns, shifts in competitors' messaging. The full annual analysis lets you return to broader questions: is the competitor list still current, has the target customer changed, do our dimensions of advantage still matter.

More important than frequency itself is who is responsible for updating it and where the findings go. Without a process owner, even the best document loses value within a few weeks.

What to do with the analysis results

Findings from competitive analysis should go to three places: into communication (what we say and how), into the offer (what we sell and under what model), and into the sales process (how we guide a client from first contact to signature).

It is also worth establishing who in the company is responsible for updating the analysis and how often you revisit the findings. Without that, the document loses value within a few weeks.

If you want to turn the findings into a concrete action plan, the Growth Group team works with companies across the region and beyond. We can step in with full agency support or as an interim marketing manager paid on results.