A market map describes the broad structure around a buyer job. A competitor list names companies that can change the same decision. A watchlist identifies the few sources worth monitoring, and a deal set records the alternatives in one buyer's active choice. Confusing the four produces bloated monitoring and weak strategy.
What this guide covers
- four models that are often collapsed into one spreadsheet;
- the inclusion rule for each;
- how a company moves between the models;
- a practical portfolio record.
The market map answers “what system are we in?”
A market map can include core products, adjacent workflows, infrastructure, channel partners, complements, and emerging substitutes. Its purpose is category structure, discovery, and movement over time. It should be broader than the direct competitor set.
Formal taxonomies such as NAICS classify economic activity for statistical purposes. A strategic software market map serves a different job and usually needs a buyer, workflow, and substitution definition.
The competitor set answers “who changes this decision?”
Include a company when the same buyer can reasonably select it instead of you—or allocate enough budget, workflow control, or attention to alter the need for you—for a defined job.
The test is not shared language. Official offers such as GitHub Copilot plans, Replit pricing, and Gumloop pricing reveal different product and commercial boundaries. Whether they compete depends on the exact buyer decision, not the presence of AI or automation language.
Maintain competitor sets by segment or use case. A company can be direct in one and adjacent in another.
The watchlist answers “what deserves recurring attention?”
Not every competitor warrants the same source coverage. A watchlist should contain three to five companies whose movement could affect a current decision. Each source needs:
- the field watched;
- the owner;
- the change threshold;
- the review cadence;
- the action or escalation rule.
A direct competitor with no relevant movement may need weekly pricing and release checks. An adjacent platform may need only monthly positioning and integration review.
The deal set answers “what is this buyer considering?”
The deal set comes from field evidence. It may include internal build, manual process, incumbent software, services, delaying the decision, or a company outside the formal category. That makes it especially valuable for testing the market map.
Do not automatically promote one deal alternative into the core competitor set. Look for recurring decision overlap and corroborate the product boundary.
Use distinct inclusion rules
| Model | Inclusion rule | Review cadence | Primary output |
|---|---|---|---|
| Market map | participates in the broader buyer/workflow system | quarterly | category structure and movement |
| Competitor set | substitutes in a named decision | quarterly + evidence-led | strategy and comparison |
| Watchlist | movement can affect a current owned decision | monthly or faster | reviewed evidence and actions |
| Deal set | buyer explicitly considers it now | deal-led | qualification and discovery |
One company may appear in all four, but that should be earned separately.
Manage promotion and demotion
Promote an adjacent market participant into the competitor set when product scope, buyer, commercial unit, and proof show credible substitution. Add it to the watchlist only when a current owner decision justifies the capacity.
Demote when overlap disappears, the product is absorbed, the segment changes, or recurring deal evidence shows a different alternative. Preserve the history and reason.
| Company | Market role | Competitor decision | Watched sources | Deal appearances | Last review | Movement |
|---|---|---|---|---:|---|---|
| | core / adjacent / infrastructure | | | | | promoted / stable / demoted |Diagnose a bad model
Warning signs include:
- the market map contains only famous logos;
- every market participant is watched daily;
- the battlecard list never changes;
- sales alternatives do not appear in strategy reviews;
- “do nothing” and internal build are missing from deal analysis;
- classification disputes have no written decision rule;
- no record shows why a company entered or left the set.
Connect the four without merging them
Use the EXVIV market map for broad structure, the company directory for discovery, and Evidence Compare for narrower public movements. The competitor-monitoring guide helps build the operational watchlist. The AI evidence architecture keeps source transformations reviewable.
The point is not to choose one model. It is to maintain clear transitions among them so research breadth does not become operational noise.
Related EXVIV research
Sources and further reading
Method note
The models are decision tools, not objective universal taxonomies. Record the buyer job, segment, observation date, evidence, and reason for every material classification.