B2B Competitor Analysis: What a Useful Study Should Deliver

Most B2B competitor studies arrive as a slide deck of screenshots: each rival’s homepage, follower counts, a sample of posts and a colour-coded table of “strengths and weaknesses”. It looks thorough. It rarely changes a decision, because it describes what competitors say about themselves, not what a buyer experiences when choosing between them.

In B2B markets the real competition happens in places a website review never reaches: the approval lists that decide who can bid, the agency rights that decide who can sell a brand, the tender awards that show who actually wins, and the speed and quality of the reply when an engineer asks for a quotation. This guide sets out what a company commissioning competitor analysis should demand, how to verify each layer of evidence, where the ethical lines sit, and how the findings should become a positioning gap map and a plan.

Start with the decision, not the competitor list

A competitor study is only useful if it answers a question someone has to decide. Before any research starts, the brief should name that decision. Typical examples:

• Which segment should we lead with next year, and against whom?
• Why are we losing tenders we are qualified for?
• Should we reposition the brand, or is the problem our sales response?
• Is it worth taking on a second product line from a new principal?

The decision sets the scope. A study about lost tenders needs award records and pre-qualification evidence; a study about repositioning needs buyer perception and messaging. Without this, research teams default to what is easiest to collect, which is usually social media.

It also helps to anchor the work in a recognised framework so the study looks beyond the obvious names. Michael Porter’s five forces (Harvard Business Review, January 2008) is a widely used starting point: rivalry among existing competitors, the power of suppliers, the power of customers, the threat of new entrants and the threat of substitutes. For a B2B company the last three often matter as much as direct rivals. A principal that can switch its regional distributor, a large contractor that can import directly, or a new entrant with a stronger approval portfolio may be a bigger threat than the competitor everyone in the sales meeting names first.

Seven evidence layers a useful study should cover

A website and social review is one layer out of seven. The table below sets out what each layer tells you and where the evidence comes from.

The point of this structure is that each layer is checked against a source the competitor does not control. A logo on a website proves nothing; a current entry in the issuing body’s register does.

How to verify the layers that matter most

Approvals and certifications

Brochures and websites often show certification logos that have expired, apply only to one product, or belong to the manufacturer rather than the local company. A good study records, for each claim, who holds the certificate, what it covers and whether it is current.

For management-system certificates such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001 or ISO 45001, IAF CertSearch is the database backed by the International Accreditation Forum. It lets users check whether a certificate is valid, whether the certification body was accredited to issue it and whether that accreditation body is an IAF member for the standard. For product approvals and listings, check the issuing body’s own directory, and for local authority approvals, check with the authority itself. Not every certification body uploads all its certificates, so a missing entry is a reason to ask the certification body directly, not proof that a claim is false. Where a register cannot be checked, the study should say so rather than repeating the claim.

Agency and distributor rights

In sectors such as fire protection, security, pumps or building materials, the right to represent a brand is often the competitive advantage. In Saudi Arabia, commercial agencies are registered with the Ministry of Commerce, which runs online services for agents and distributors to renew or write off a commercial agency. Agency rules change from time to time, so check the Ministry’s current services and regulations rather than relying on an older summary. A study can rarely see a rival’s registration certificate, so it should combine three kinds of evidence: the principal’s own published partner or distributor list for the country, public announcements by the principal, and whether the rival’s rights look exclusive or shared. The useful output is not “competitor X distributes brand Y” but an assessment of how dependent each rival is on one principal and how exposed that position is.

Tender activity and awards

For companies that sell to government entities in Saudi Arabia, Etimad is often the most useful public record available. The General Authority for Statistics, for example, describes its tender process as offering tenders, examining bids and e-awarding through Etimad, and notes that its previous tenders can be accessed there. The SME authority Monsha’at explains that visitors can browse future, current and completed tenders on Etimad, filtered by government entity. Beyond that, the detail comes from secondary sources: according to a February 2026 guide by Setup in Saudi, bids move through statuses such as under technical review, under financial review, awarded and cancelled, award notices are published on Etimad, and unsuccessful bidders can review the winning price where it is disclosed alongside their own technical and financial scores. Check on the portal itself what is visible for the tenders you follow, as access and screens can differ by tender and by account.

A study should use these records to answer practical questions: which competitors appear repeatedly as winners in your categories, which government entities they win with, and whether they win on price or on technical scores. If your company bids, your own score sheets from lost tenders are some of the best competitor evidence you have, and they are often never analysed; our diagnosis of why companies keep losing tenders shows how to read them.

Pricing signals

Exact competitor prices are rarely available, and a study should not pretend otherwise. What it can deliver is a defensible price position for each rival: published price lists where they exist, disclosed award values, payment and warranty terms, and the structure of any quotation received in a legitimate inquiry. Present these as ranges and signals, with the source and date for each, not as a single “competitor price” figure.

Test inquiries: useful, but within clear limits

The most revealing single exercise in a B2B competitor study is often a test inquiry: asking a competitor for information or a quotation the way a real buyer would, then recording how fast they reply, whether the answer is accurate, and how they follow up. It shows the gap between the brand a competitor presents and the service a buyer receives, which is usually where the positioning opportunity lies.

It also carries obvious risks. The UK Market Research Society’s Guidelines for Mystery Shopping Research (October 2011) were written for MRS members, and interpret an earlier edition of its Code of Conduct, but their principles for shopping competitors are a sensible baseline whatever your market:

• Keep it short. The time taken from the competitor’s staff should be as brief as possible and reflect a normal inquiry of that type.
• Do not disrupt business. Individual staff must not be targeted in a way that disrupts or slows normal business.
• Report in aggregate. Findings should be reported at an aggregated level, not by individual contact.
• Do not record staff. Because competitors’ employees cannot be told they may be shopped, the MRS rule is that they must not be recorded on audio, photo or video.

It makes sense to add your own limits on top. Do not invent a fake company, impersonate a real one or use someone else’s name. Do not ask for follow-up calls or meetings a real buyer would not need, or for detailed technical designs or tender-specific pricing that would cost the competitor real engineering time. Do not try to obtain confidential information. This is practical guidance, not legal advice: rules on recording, privacy, unfair competition and the use of personal data differ by country, so take local legal advice before running any test inquiry. In practice, a short inquiry for a standard product or service, sent through a public channel such as WhatsApp, the website form or the published sales email, gives most of the insight with little burden on anyone.

The output should be a simple scorecard per competitor: time to first reply, whether the reply answered the question, whether a quotation or data sheet arrived, the quality of the documents, and whether anyone followed up.

From findings to a positioning gap map

Evidence only becomes useful when it is turned into a choice. The standard tool is a positioning map, and the most common mistake is choosing axes that suit the company rather than the buyer. “Quality versus price” tells you little, because every competitor claims high quality.

1. Choose two axes buyers actually decide on. Use evidence from lost tenders, sales conversations and buyer interviews. In B2B these are often things like approval coverage, technical support depth, delivery speed, project references in a sector, or range breadth.
2. Place each competitor using the evidence log, not opinion. An approval-coverage axis, for example, should be scored from verified registers.
3. Look for empty space with demand behind it. An empty quadrant is only an opportunity if buyers want what it represents and you can credibly deliver it.
4. Compare the claimed position with the experienced position. Plot where each competitor’s marketing says it stands and where the test inquiry and award data say it stands. The gap between the two is often your most practical opening.

For example, a hypothetical distributor might find that two larger rivals both claim “technical leadership” but take days to send a data sheet and rarely follow up. That is not an argument for a louder campaign; it is an argument for building the brand around responsiveness and technical documentation, and then making sure the sales team can deliver it. Our guide to positioning for engineers and procurement covers that step.

The positioning work then feeds the rest of the plan: the message hierarchy, the brand and company profile, the sales materials and the channels. This is where competitor research connects to brand positioning and identity, and where companies often discover that their gap is not visual but operational. For a broader method on testing whether a market is worth entering at all, see our guide to researching a new market.

What the final deliverable should contain

Whether the study is done in-house or commissioned (for Saudi Arabia, see choosing a market research company), hold it to this checklist:

• A one-page answer to the decision in the brief, with a clear recommendation.
• A competitor set that includes potential entrants, substitutes and principals, not only the familiar names.
• A profile per competitor covering all seven evidence layers, with gaps marked as gaps.
• An evidence log with sources, dates and confidence levels.
• A test-inquiry scorecard, with the method and ethical limits stated.
• A positioning gap map built on buyer-chosen axes.
• A short plan: which position to own, what must change in the offer or sales process to make it true, which messages and materials come first, and how progress will be measured.
• A date for review. Approvals expire, agencies change hands and award patterns shift; a study older than a year should be refreshed before it drives a major decision.

Red flags in a proposal or a finished study include follower counts presented as market share, strengths and weaknesses with no sources, no tender or approval research in a market where both decide deals, and recommendations that amount to “post more” or “spend more on ads”.

A first step costs nothing: write down the one decision the study must answer, and pull the score sheets from your last three lost tenders. If those two documents do not tell you which evidence layers matter, the brief is not ready. At RX, competitor research sits inside marketing strategy and research work and ends in a plan.