How many competitors should a competitive landscape analysis include?

Enough to represent the meaningful structure of the market without overcrowding the visual, which in practice is usually somewhere between eight and twenty players depending on how fragmented the category is. Legibility should take priority over exhaustiveness.

How do you choose the axes for a positioning map?

Effective axes reflect real, decision-relevant buying criteria that customers actually use to differentiate vendors, rather than generic labels. They are usually identified by looking at how deals are actually won and lost in the category, not by defaulting to a standard template.

How often should a competitive landscape analysis be updated?

This depends on how fast the category moves, but because landscape maps tend to look just as authoritative when stale as when fresh, every map should carry a clear as-of date and most organizations benefit from a defined refresh cadence, often every two to four quarters.

Can a competitive landscape analysis include our own company?

Yes, and including your own position on the map is usually one of the most valuable parts of the exercise, since it shows directly how you sit relative to the rest of the field on the chosen axes.

What is the difference between a landscape analysis and a market map?

The terms are largely interchangeable in practice. Both refer to a structured view of the players in a market or category, typically visualized along chosen dimensions, paired with written analysis of the resulting structure.

Competitive Landscape Analysis: A Structured Approach

A competitive landscape analysis is meant to show the shape of a market's competitive structure at a glance: who the players are, how they cluster, and where the white space sits. It is easy to produce a landscape analysis that looks impressive and says almost nothing; this guide covers how to avoid that.

By the Princeton Analytica research team · Updated 2026-08-21

Landscape Analysis Answers a Different Question Than Company Profiles

A competitor analysis report goes deep on a small number of named rivals. A competitive landscape analysis instead goes wide, mapping the full set of relevant players and the structure connecting them, usually to answer questions like where the market is consolidated versus fragmented, where meaningful white space exists, and how a new entrant or a repositioning move would land relative to the existing field.

Because it prioritizes breadth, a landscape analysis should not attempt company-profile-level depth on every player included. The value is in the structure and clustering, not in exhaustive detail on each individual company.

Choosing the Right Axes for the Map

The most common landscape format is a two-axis positioning map, and its usefulness depends entirely on choosing axes that reflect a real, decision-relevant dimension of differentiation rather than generic categories like "innovative" versus "traditional," which tend to produce a map where every company claims to belong in the same quadrant.

Good axes are usually derived from how customers actually describe their choice criteria when evaluating vendors in the category, such as price versus depth of capability, or breadth of platform versus specialization. If you are not confident the axes reflect real buying criteria, that is worth resolving before the map is built, because a landscape map with the wrong axes actively misleads rather than merely underwhelms.

What Belongs Alongside the Visual

A landscape map without accompanying analysis is decoration. The written analysis should identify the clusters that emerge, name what distinguishes each cluster's strategy, flag where the map is unusually crowded versus unusually sparse, and state what the white space, if any, implies about opportunity or about why that space may be structurally unattractive to enter.

It should also identify the players who do not fit cleanly into the chosen structure, since these outliers are often the most strategically interesting: either a company pursuing a genuinely novel position, or a signal that the axes chosen do not capture the full picture and should be revisited.

A clustering narrative explaining what groups the players and why
Named white space with a stated view on whether it is attractive
Outlier companies that do not fit the chosen structure
A summary of what the structure implies for your specific position

Data Currency Is a Bigger Risk Here Than Elsewhere

Landscape analyses go stale faster than they look like they should, because a map's visual authority tends to outlast the accuracy of the underlying data. A positioning map built from six-month-old pricing and positioning data can look just as confident and clean as one built yesterday, which makes an undated landscape map a genuine risk if it circulates internally long after its source data expired.

Every landscape analysis should carry a clear as-of date, and any organization that plans to keep using the map should build in a refresh cadence rather than treating a one-time snapshot as evergreen.

Common Mistakes

The most common mistake is including too many players to keep the map legible, which usually means the axes have been chosen too broadly. A landscape covering thirty companies on generic axes communicates less than one covering twelve companies on axes specific enough to actually differentiate them.

A second mistake is skipping the written analysis and treating the visual as the deliverable, which leaves the reader to infer conclusions the report should have stated. A third is failing to place your own organization on the map, which is often the single most useful data point the exercise can produce.

How Princeton Analytica Approaches This

Princeton Analytica's competitive landscape analysis template is built to pair a positioning map with a full written analysis of clustering, white space, and outliers, using axes chosen during the Report Diagnostic based on the buying criteria that actually matter in your category rather than generic defaults.

Every player included carries a stated as-of date on the underlying data, drawn from the pipeline's registered source list, and the deterministic quantitative analysis stage is used for any positioning or scoring calculations behind the map so the placement of each company is traceable rather than a subjective visual judgment.

Frequently asked questions

How many competitors should a competitive landscape analysis include?: Enough to represent the meaningful structure of the market without overcrowding the visual, which in practice is usually somewhere between eight and twenty players depending on how fragmented the category is. Legibility should take priority over exhaustiveness.
How do you choose the axes for a positioning map?: Effective axes reflect real, decision-relevant buying criteria that customers actually use to differentiate vendors, rather than generic labels. They are usually identified by looking at how deals are actually won and lost in the category, not by defaulting to a standard template.
How often should a competitive landscape analysis be updated?: This depends on how fast the category moves, but because landscape maps tend to look just as authoritative when stale as when fresh, every map should carry a clear as-of date and most organizations benefit from a defined refresh cadence, often every two to four quarters.
Can a competitive landscape analysis include our own company?: Yes, and including your own position on the map is usually one of the most valuable parts of the exercise, since it shows directly how you sit relative to the rest of the field on the chosen axes.
What is the difference between a landscape analysis and a market map?: The terms are largely interchangeable in practice. Both refer to a structured view of the players in a market or category, typically visualized along chosen dimensions, paired with written analysis of the resulting structure.