Responding to a new competitor

A new competitor was winning market share. Our client needed facts quickly.

A SaaS vendor had lost an important sales opportunity to a new competitor that most of its salespeople barely knew. The loss exposed a wider problem. The competitor was expanding into new sectors, building a presence in multiple markets and methodically picking off key accounts. Our client needed to understand the scale of the threat, how the competitor was winning, and what it was likely to do next.

The challenge

The competitor had previously attracted little attention outside its home markets. That changed after it won a high-value deal and began appearing more often in automotive and financial services opportunities.

Geographical expansion raised further questions. How ambitious were its international expansion plans? Which industries, customers and use cases were driving its growth? What was the competitor’s operating model for expanding so quickly? Our client also needed to know whether the competitor’s product, pricing or sales approach explained the recent win.

Public information offered fragments of the answer. It did not show how customers viewed the product, how large the competitor’s commercial operation was, or how seriously our client should treat its expansion plans. PMM, sales and strategy teams needed one consistent assessment based on real facts.

The project had two purposes. First, establish the competitor’s current position across multiple regions and understand the competitor’s strengths. Second, assess its likely direction and give our client practical options for responding.

What we did

Aqute assembled a research team with local coverage in the US, EMEA and APAC. We combined detailed desk research with interviews that reached beyond the information available on the competitor’s website.

We first built a structured company profile. This covered financial information, key customers, priority sectors, product positioning and signs of geographic expansion. We reviewed official filings, customer stories, presentations, social media activity and other published material. We also found less obvious sources, including contract documents and employee profiles.

LinkedIn data helped us estimate the size and distribution of the competitor’s sales organization. Individual profiles also provided evidence of customer relationships, hiring priorities and expansion activity. Looking across thousands of employee records gave our client a stronger view of where the competitor was investing and which markets it appeared to be preparing to enter.

The next stage focused on customers. We interviewed selected users of the competitor’s software to understand why they had bought it, what they valued after purchase, and where the product or service fell short. These interviews helped separate the competitor’s marketing claims from the experience of customers using the product.

We brought the evidence together in a threat assessment covering market presence, customer base, product strengths, weaknesses, growth trajectory and international plans. The analysis also examined who was likely to lead the expansion, the expected timing and the level of investment behind it.

The final output was designed for use across functions. PMM received evidence on positioning and customer perceptions. Sales received specific points for competitive conversations. Strategy leaders received a view of the competitor’s likely next moves and the markets where a response mattered most.

Results

The research gave our client a firm view of the competitor’s ambitions and the seriousness of the threat. It also showed how the competitor was presenting itself, which customers it was attracting and where its offer was vulnerable.

The sales team used the findings to create a battlecard for US opportunities. It set out the reasons a buyer might hesitate to choose the competitor and gave representatives evidence they could use during competitive deals. The content used customer experience and operating realities to replace generic feature claims.

Our client also adjusted its wider market strategy. It increased competitive pressure in key regions, forcing the competitor to defend its established territory while pursuing expansion elsewhere. In Europe, our client opened its own local office, reducing the advantage that the competitor might gain from presenting itself as a local option.

Company data showed the competitor’s scale. Employee research showed where it was investing. Customer interviews explained how it won and where it disappointed. Taken together, those findings helped our client decide how to brief sales, where to strengthen positioning and which geographic moves required a direct response.

A competitor that had been poorly understood became a defined commercial threat with identifiable strengths, weaknesses and plans. Our client could respond before the competitor’s international expansion became harder to contain.