Competitive Analysis Template: Fill-In Grid, Scoring Rules and a Worked Example

Frameworks the template folds in

In a SWOT, strengths and weaknesses describe the business itself; opportunities and threats come from outside it¹. Michael Porter’s five forces are rivalry among existing competitors, the threat of new entrants, the bargaining power of buyers, the bargaining power of suppliers and the threat of substitutes, first published in Harvard Business Review in the March–April 1979 issue². Michael S. Hunt introduced the term strategic groups in his 1972 Harvard dissertation to describe firms in one industry that follow similar strategies³.

The BCG growth-share matrix is left out. It sorts a company’s own businesses or products into stars, cash cows, question marks and dogs⁴, so it rates your portfolio and says nothing about rivals.

Step 1. Write the decision this analysis feeds

Put one question at the top of the file, for example «Should I launch a grooming van at $X in these zip codes?» or «Should I match the price cut a rival made last month?» Each row you add later must help answer it, so delete any row that doesn’t.

Step 2. List direct, indirect and substitute rivals

Search the way your customer would: the phrase they type, the map results for your area and the review sites. Then add public data. NAICS is the standard US federal statistical agencies use to classify business establishments, and the Census Bureau has a NAICS code search⁵. County Business Patterns reports establishment counts by 6-digit NAICS industry and by county⁶. For grooming, the code is 812910, Pet Care (except Veterinary) Services, which also covers boarding, sitting, walking and training⁷. If a rival is a public company, its annual report on Form 10-K is free to search in EDGAR⁸.

The first two rows use figures from the example below. List every direct rival you can find, then add the indirect ones that do the same job. In our example, the check turned up six direct rivals^ex. For the search routine and a site teardown, see how to find competitors and review their sites.

Step 3. Gather the same facts for every rival

Do the last row yourself. Ask for a quote as a customer and time the reply. Date every cell: prices and coverage change, and an undated fact cannot be compared with next quarter’s.

Step 4. Score the grid against yourself

These are the template’s rules. They are ours, and the idea check does not compute them.

1. Score each row 1–3 against your own business: 1 = weaker than you, 2 = on par, 3 = stronger.
2. Every score needs an evidence cell with something you saw yourself, such as a link or a quoted price. With no evidence, the cell stays blank. Never guess.
3. Read rivals in order of visibility share, largest first.
4. A row where every rival scores 3 is table stakes you must match. A row where every rival scores 1 is an opening for your positioning line.
5. The complaint themes with the highest counts become opportunities for you, and threats if you would repeat them.

Add weights if some rows decide the purchase more than others. The weights are your judgment, so label them as an assumption in the file.

Step 5. Count what their customers complain about

Read each rival’s low-rated reviews. Put every complaint under one theme, count the complaints per theme, keep one quote per theme and note which rival it came from. Counts let you compare themes; a pile of quotes does not. For sources and tagging, see how to mine complaints from reviews.

Step 6. SWOT and one positioning line

Build the SWOT from the grid, not from opinion.

Then write one line: «For [customer] who is tired of [top complaint theme], [your business] gives [outcome], unlike [largest rival], which [row where it scores 1].» The full file is in the SWOT template; positioning and your unique offer explains the line in depth.

Competitors, read by visibility share

The check found six direct rivals in the example^ex. The table lists the four direct rivals with the largest shares and the one indirect rival, in read order (example by our method):

The grid’s score and evidence cells stay blank here. Rule 2 applies: until you hold a quote and a booking test for each rival, there is nothing to score. Start with Lucky Dog, the largest share.

Price and unit economics

All figures below are example by our method.

In the example, the check’s unit price of $56.50^ex sits $28.50 to $63.50 below the $85–$120 the idea names^ex. Price your own grid row from the quotes you collect in step 3. The 0.6 purchases a month works out to one groom every 1.67 months, about seven weeks (example by our method)^ex, which matches the idea’s 6–8 weeks. LTV/CAC of 4.75^ex clears our line of 3. To rerun the numbers with your own price, use the unit economics calculator.

Complaint themes

Service and support leads with six complaints in the example^ex, six times the count for price^ex. By rule 5, it is the first opportunity in the SWOT.

Risks, in template order

The check rated four risks in the example; the last column is the template’s probability × impact.

The demand source in the example is «none»^ex. Test demand before you buy a van; see check demand before you launch.

On insurance, personal auto policies typically exclude many business uses, so a grooming van may need a commercial auto policy or an endorsement to the personal policy that covers that use¹⁰. North Carolina requires continuous liability coverage on every registered vehicle, with a minimum of 50/100/50 ($50,000 per person, $100,000 per accident, $50,000 property damage) for policies issued or renewed after July 1, 2025¹¹. Get a quote before you set your price. More on ranking risks: business risks before launch.

SWOT and the positioning line

• Strengths: none claimed. The idea has no evidence yet for any row.
• Weaknesses: no demand data^ex.
• Opportunities: the six Service and support complaints^ex.
• Threats: Lucky Dog’s 30 % share^ex and the same-service risk^ex.

As an illustration of the method only: «For busy Raleigh dog owners tired of slow replies, the van confirms every groom by text the day before, unlike the largest mobile rival.» The line becomes usable once your step 3 booking test shows that the rival’s reply time is in fact slow.