Building Competitive Landscape Maps Your Executive Team Actually Understands

Your competitive landscape slide has 30 logos plotted on a 2x2 grid labeled "Innovation" vs. "Market Presence." Your CEO looks at it for five seconds and asks "Which of these actually matter?" You don't have a good answer because your map shows everyone, not the competitors that actually affect your strategy.

Competitive landscape mapping fails when it tries to be comprehensive instead of useful. The goal isn't to show every company in your space. It's to help executives understand competitive dynamics well enough to make better decisions about positioning, pricing, product roadmap, and resource allocation.

After building competitive landscape analyses at four companies and presenting them to dozens of boards and exec teams, I've learned the pattern: effective competitive maps answer specific strategic questions. Generic maps that plot "everyone in the space" answer no questions and drive no decisions.

Here's how to build competitive landscapes that actually inform strategy.

The Three Questions Your Map Must Answer

Before plotting competitors on axes, identify what strategic questions the map needs to answer:

Question 1: Who are we actually competing against right now?

Not "who's in our category" but "who are we losing deals to and why?" This focuses the map on competitors that affect current revenue, not comprehensive market census.

Question 2: How should we differentiate to win?

The map should reveal white space or underserved positions where you can build defensible differentiation. If everyone clusters in one quadrant, that's either where customer value concentrates or where opportunity for different positioning exists.

Question 3: How is the competitive landscape changing?

Which competitors are growing/shrinking? What strategic moves are they making? Is the market consolidating or fragmenting? The map should show momentum, not just current state.

If your competitive landscape doesn't help answer these three questions, it's not strategic—it's decorative.

Map Type 1: The Deal-Level Competitive Set

Best for: Understanding who you compete with in actual sales cycles

Instead of plotting all companies in your category, plot only companies that appear in your deals.

How to build it:

Pull your last 50 closed deals (wins and losses). For each deal, note which competitors were evaluated. Count frequency.

Example output:

• Competitor A: Appeared in 38/50 deals (76%)
• Competitor B: Appeared in 22/50 deals (44%)
• Competitor C: Appeared in 12/50 deals (24%)
• Build/Internal: 18/50 deals (36%)
• Status quo: 15/50 deals (30%)

This reveals your real competitive set. If Competitor D has the biggest booth at the industry conference but appears in 0% of your deals, they don't belong on your strategic competitive map.

Axes that work for this map:

• X-axis: Price point (low to high)
• Y-axis: Buyer type (SMB to Enterprise)

This shows where competitors cluster in deal competition and where white space exists.

Strategic insight this reveals: If 80% of competitors cluster at high-price/enterprise while customer demand is shifting to mid-market, that's a positioning opportunity.

Map Type 2: The Capability Matrix

Best for: Product roadmap prioritization and feature differentiation

Plot competitors based on product capabilities that buyers actually evaluate.

How to build it:

From win/loss interviews, identify the top 4-6 capabilities that affect buying decisions (not features you think matter, but capabilities prospects actually compare).

Example capabilities:

• Integration breadth
• Implementation speed
• Customization flexibility
• Advanced analytics
• Self-service capability
• Enterprise security

Plot competitors on the two capabilities that most frequently determine deal outcomes.

Example axes:

• X-axis: Implementation complexity (simple to complex)
• Y-axis: Feature completeness (basic to comprehensive)

Strategic insight this reveals: If you're in bottom-right (complex, comprehensive), you're probably losing mid-market deals to simpler alternatives. If you're top-left (simple, basic), you're capped at SMB market.

Map Type 3: The Market Evolution Map

Best for: Board presentations and long-term strategic planning

Show how competitive positioning is shifting over time, not just current state.

How to build it:

Plot competitors on strategic dimensions that are evolving:

Example axes:

• X-axis: GTM motion (sales-led to product-led)
• Y-axis: Market focus (horizontal to vertical)

Add arrows showing direction of movement. Competitor moving from horizontal to vertical-focused gets an arrow pointing up. Competitor adding PLG motion gets arrow pointing left.

Strategic insight this reveals: If five competitors are all moving toward vertical specialization, that's a market trend you need to either follow or explicitly compete against with strong horizontal positioning.

The Axes That Actually Work

Most 2x2 maps use generic axes like "Innovation" or "Vision" that sound strategic but mean nothing concrete.

Axes that drive decisions:

Price/Value axes

• Price point (actual ACV ranges, not "low/high")
• Customer segment by size (specific employee count or revenue ranges)

Product axes

• Breadth (point solution to platform)
• Deployment model (cloud-native to hybrid/on-prem)
• Implementation time (days to months)

Market axes

• Geographic focus (regional to global)
• Vertical specialization (horizontal to single-industry)
• Customer maturity (startups to enterprise)

GTM axes

• Sales motion (self-serve to enterprise sales)
• Channel strategy (direct to partner-led)

Pick axes where:

1. Competitors clearly differentiate (not clustered)
2. Position on axis predicts different outcomes (market share, win rate, etc.)
3. Your exec team can understand without explanation

If you need three paragraphs to explain what your axes mean, they're too abstract.

How to Handle "Build vs. Buy" Competition

The most common competitive alternative isn't another vendor—it's internal build or status quo.

How to show this:

Add "Build/Internal" and "Status Quo" as distinct positions on your map. Plot them based on typical characteristics:

Build/Internal typically is:

• Low initial cost, high ongoing cost
• Highly customized but poorly maintained
• Slow to implement, slower to evolve

Status quo typically is:

• Zero cost but increasing pain
• Familiar but limiting
• Low risk (no change) but high opportunity cost

If 40% of your lost deals are to "build" or "status quo," your competitive landscape should reflect this prominently. These aren't companies, but they're absolutely competitive alternatives.

Visual Design That Enhances Understanding

Use size to show significance

Logo size should represent something meaningful:

• Market share (revenue or customer count)
• Deal frequency (how often you compete against them)
• Growth rate (momentum indicator)

Use color to show categories

Group competitors by type:

• Incumbents (established, large market share)
• Fast-growers (well-funded, rapidly scaling)
• Niche players (specialized, defensible positions)
• Emerging threats (new entrants with traction)

Use arrows to show movement

Static plots show current state. Arrows show trajectory:

• Competitor moving upmarket
• Competitor moving from sales-led to PLG
• Competitor pivoting to different vertical

Movement matters more than current position for strategic planning.

Common Mapping Mistakes That Kill Credibility

Mistake 1: Plotting yourself in the top-right "leader" quadrant

Every vendor's internal competitive map shows themselves as leaders. It's not credible. Plot yourself honestly based on the same criteria you use for competitors.

Mistake 2: Using aspirational positioning instead of current reality

If you want to move upmarket but currently serve SMB, plot where you are today, not where you want to be. You can show target position with an arrow.

Mistake 3: Including too many competitors

More than 8-10 competitors makes the map cluttered and dilutes focus. Show primary competitive set (appear in >20% of deals) on main map. Put long-tail competitors in appendix.

Mistake 4: Choosing axes that cluster everyone

If all competitors cluster in one quadrant, your axes don't differentiate. Pick dimensions where the competitive set actually spreads out.

How to Keep Maps Current

Competitive landscapes shift quarterly. Set update cadence:

Quarterly refresh:

• Update competitor positions based on product launches, pricing changes, public metrics
• Add new competitors that start appearing in deals
• Remove competitors that fall below 10% deal appearance threshold

Annual strategic review:

• Reevaluate axes (are these still the dimensions that matter most?)
• Analyze movement patterns (is market consolidating, fragmenting, or staying stable?)
• Update market size and share estimates

Stale competitive maps are worse than no competitive maps. They lead to decisions based on outdated understanding.

Making the Map Actionable

Every competitive landscape should come with strategic implications spelled out:

Format that works:

Map: [Visual competitive landscape]

Key insights:

1. "We compete most frequently against Competitors A and B, who cluster at [position]. This suggests we should differentiate by [strategy]."

2. "Market is moving toward [trend], shown by arrows indicating [competitors] shifting positioning. We should [accelerate/resist/adapt to] this trend because [reason]."

3. "White space exists in [quadrant], representing [market segment]. We could capture this by [specific product/GTM change]."

Recommended actions:

• Product: Prioritize [capability] to differentiate from [competitor cluster]
• Marketing: Emphasize [positioning] to own [white space]
• Sales: Create battle cards focused on [top 3 deal-level competitors]

The map is the visual. The insights and actions are what drive decisions.

Competitive landscape mapping isn't about showing you know the market. It's about showing you know which parts of the market matter strategically and what to do about it. Build maps that answer real questions, use axes that mean something concrete, and tie visuals to specific strategic choices. That's when competitive landscapes become strategic tools instead of PowerPoint decorations.