The Top Three Benefits of Win-Loss Analysis: Benefit# 1

Last week, a business associate asked me, “What are the top three benefits of Win-Loss Analysis?” To impress him with my knowledge on the subject, I rattled off half a dozen or more in a minute’s time which was TMI – Too Much Information for him to digest. When I hung up the phone, I realized I hadn’t answered his question. The question was what are the top 3 benefits of Win-Loss…not 6, not 12, just 3. Since that call, I have put considerable thought into his question and decided my next three blog posts would answer it, one benefit at a time. Here is the first.

Benefit #1: Ability to Gather the Most Current Competitive Information

Wikipedia points out, “Given that competitor analysis is an essential component of corporate strategy, it is argued that most firms do not conduct this type of analysis systematically enough. Instead, many enterprises operate on what is called informal impressions, conjectures, and intuition gained through the tidbits of information about competitors every manager continually receives As a result, traditional environmental scanning places many firms at risk of dangerous competitive blindspots due to a lack of robust competitor analysis”

Porter Research, a marketing reserach and consulting firm, notes, “Win-Loss research is critical to the process of assessing the competitive arena”. One of the biggest benefits of doing Win-Loss Analysis is it enables a company to gather the most current competitive intelligence…what is the competition doing today, not last year. If conducted on a timely and regular basis, Win-Loss interviews will identify recent changes in competitive behavior (i.e. new sales tactics, new, innovative marketing programs, revised pricing and product bundling, etc.) thus reducing the number of competitive blindspots (surprises) based upon erroneous or outdated information. Intelligence gathered on internal calls with your sales teams and/or external calls directly with prospects keeps your teams up to date on recent competitive behavior changes, providing them with valuable knowledge of what to expect when they next encounter a specific competitor. It also gives Sales Management critical insights into how effective their teams manage the sales process vs. specific competitors, allowing them to develop new sales strategies and tactics of their own. For instance, one large software vendor was losing to a niche competitor 90% of the time. They focused their interviews on recent losses to that competitor to better understand how to successfully compete against them. In just two quarters, based upon the intelligence gathered on numerous Loss calls, they changed their strategies/tactics, and in so doing, improved their win rate to 50%; resulting in millions of dollars in incremental sales revenues.

The competitive arena is more dynamic than ever and companies are constantly changing their go-to-market strategies. Is your company using outdated competitive data based upon informal impressions, conjectures, and intuition gained through tidbits of information about competitors? If so, Win-Loss Analysis will provide your team with the most current competitive information necessary to win more business.