Win Loss Analysis - Part 1

Working as a demand generation and product marketing consultant for SaaS and Enterprise companies for over 15 years, I have done a fair share of win-loss analysis engagements for my clients.  I decided to share my experiences and recommendations on this topic through multiple posts.  In this first post, I will share a high-level perspective on win-loss analysis.  In subsequent posts, I will do a deep dive on several subtopics related to win loss analysis.

#1. Win loss analysis must be comprehensive.  It must cover the entire portfolio of wins and losses in the quarter and must cover both – quantitative and qualitative information.

• The quantitative information must cover quarterly view, as well as quarter-over-quarter trend charts.  You should be able to visualize the analysis at an aggregate level, by competitor or further sliced by region, segments or even channels.    (for example, your win rate against all competitors in EMEA region in all accounts or just against Oracle in EMEA, or against Oracle by EMEA in enterprise accounts, as well as how this has trended quarter over quarter). Your CRM system would be the primary source of such information.  I will share more on this topic (things to watch out for, example trend charts etc.) in a future blog post.
• The qualitative information provides you some key nuggets – what messages are working and/or not working, what type of sales campaigns the competition is running, where is the friction in the sales cycle,  are there any new purchasing drivers that should be packaged into your messaging etc. This information is obtained from emails and phone calls with sales and pre-sales where you won or lost a deal, as well as conversations with some of the customers who recently selected you or decided to go with the competition.  In a future blog post, I will share with you some of the open-ended questions I have asked sales, pre-sales or customers, that gave us some deep insights, which could be immediately packaged by product marketing into campaigns and messages.

#2. One of the most important deliverable in win-loss analysis is a report that should not only show these charts and summary of interviews, but more important, make it actionable for various audiences – sales, field marketing, product management etc. Each of them is looking for something different from the analysis.  For example, for one client, I discovered through customer interviews that selling into universities with a specific value proposition (because of a very unique feature) would yield them a huge advantage over the competition. Their field marketing team used that insight to launch a campaign into an industry that was not even on their radar before that analysis.  Yes, those trend charts are interesting, but what is more relevant is what each of these stakeholders can do with this information. This is what makes win-loss analysis a strategic investment, otherwise it is just a recurring reporting activity that needs to be done at the end of the quarter.  More on this topic in a future blog post.

#3. Win-loss analysis and competitive analysis are two different sides of the same coin.  They should be done on an ongoing basis and not left to the end of the quarter analysis.  Insights gleamed from win-loss analysis informs the competitive analysis.  Similarly, competitive insights can explain changes in trend charts/win rates and can be further validated with seller and customer interviews.  

I look forward to sharing many details on this and other topics around demand generation, product marketing, content development or marketing operations in my blog.  

Your thoughts?  Keep the conversation going.