How do you approach competitive analysis and market research?

Competitive analysis should inform decisions rather than produce a document.

• Define the real competitive set, including indirect alternatives and status quo. Customers frequently choose "do nothing" or a spreadsheet over any vendor.
• Analyse their positioning and messaging — what they claim, who they target, and what they are choosing not to say.
• Assess pricing and packaging, and their sales motion.
• Study their marketing — which channels they invest in, what content they produce, and what they rank and bid for. Tools such as Semrush or Ahrefs make this visible.
• Find the gap. The output should be a decision: a segment underserved, a message nobody owns, or a channel they neglect.

Market research:

• Qualitative — customer interviews, sales call reviews, win-loss analysis. This is where you learn why, and win-loss analysis is the most underused source in most companies.
• Quantitative — surveys, market sizing, and behavioural data, telling you how many.
• Secondary — industry reports and published data, cheap but rarely specific enough on its own.

Note: Two cautions worth voicing. Talking to your existing customers tells you why people bought, not why others did not — the more valuable and harder research is with people who chose someone else. And competitive analysis becomes a trap when it turns into copying; matching a competitor feature for feature guarantees you have no position of your own.