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I recently saw a post called No Winloss Blame on the On Product Management blog where they posted results of a poll discussing why product managers don’t perform win/loss analysis. Lot’s of the reasons had to do with sales interference and not having any time. The one that jumped out at me was that many product managers don’t know how to perform win/loss analysis.

I thought I’d share my experience on the topic and some good resources I’ve found in defining and performing a good win/loss analysis. In an earlier post I did a book review on Business and Competitive Analysis. There is a section that gives a great starting point for win/loss analysis processes. I found some good sample questionaires from Pragmatic Marketing and also an article from Ellen Naylor. My friend and colleague Stewart recently had a post called Your Strategic Friend, Mrs. Winloss Analysis that gives some great insight on pointers on win/loss analysis.

The key I’ve found in working with product management teams, is trying to use it as a form of market research as opposed to a sales improvement tool. We don’t have enough time to go over every win/loss opportunity that sales has.

We need to define a target segment of opportunities to talk with based on our information needs in product management. Ex: Perhaps we have a new offering in a specific industry and want to know if our go-to-market strategy is working.

Define specific goals and information that we’re trying to validate or find out.

Get some background on accounts selected before talking with them. This could help you identify areas that you may want to dig deeper if possible.

I believe one of the biggest problems we have is that we don’t explain the value of win/loss analysis to others in or organization, inorder to get the support we need. I will try to sum up what I think are the three value propositions of win/loss analysis:

1) Be able to define more competitive products by understanding the product selection criteria of the buyer.
2) Create and validate competitive “Go to Market” strategies
3) Identify market gaps and increase product differentiation

Strategy Execution: Win/loss analysis is one of the tools that product managers can use to validate how well their product strategy is being executed, and if it is an effective strategy. Is the competitive strategy working with regards to positioning, product & service offerings, marketing, and sales and distribution?

DerickWorkman Product Management