The "Job" Your Competitors Don't Want You to Know

Applying Jobs-to-be-Done to competitor strategy for a decisive market advantage.

𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗮𝗺 𝗜 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗼 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵?

I want you to see that while JTBD is a method, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 is that it can be applied to almost 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮 𝙩𝙮𝙥𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙗𝙡𝙚𝙢. You have a choice; you can spend years listening to someone preach about how to do a small part of it, or you can inspire yourself to dive in and solve problems that are never talked about in this small community. 𝗟𝗲𝘁'𝘀 𝗺𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗺𝘂𝗰𝗵 𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗿.

The Blinders of Traditional Competitor Analysis

Remember Blockbuster? They spent years worrying about Hollywood Video and other local rental stores. Meanwhile, Netflix, a company mailing DVDs (and later streaming), was quietly redefining how people achieved the real job: Accessing entertainment conveniently at home. Blockbuster wasn't just blindsided; they were rendered obsolete because they focused on the current solution (physical stores, tapes/discs) instead of the underlying customer Job-to-be-Done (JTBD).

Traditional competitor analysis, often limited to direct feature-for-feature comparisons within the same established category, creates dangerous blind spots. It anchors your strategy to the status quo, making you vulnerable to disruption from unexpected directions.

But there’s a better way. By applying the Jobs-to-be-Done framework, you shift your focus from comparing products to understanding the progress people are trying to achieve. This wider lens is the key to revealing the non-traditional and hidden competitors that traditional methods miss. JTBD helps you see the competitive landscape not as you define it, but as your customers experience it.

What is the "Job" in Competitor Analysis?

In the context of competitor analysis, Jobs-to-be-Done centers on understanding the fundamental progress toward success a specific group of people is trying to achieve in specific situations. It’s not about the product they use; it's about the outcome they desire.

Key JTBD concepts crucial for understanding competition include:

• The Job vs. The Solution: People don't inherently want your product or service. They 'hire' it to get a Job done. The Job is stable over time; the solutions evolve. Focus on the Job.

• Desired Outcomes: More commonly known as Success Metrics, these are the specific, measurable metrics customers use (consciously or unconsciously) to evaluate how successfully they've accomplished the Job. They are solution-agnostic and provide a stable target for innovation. Examples might include "Minimize the time it takes to..." or "Minimize the likelihood of errors when...".

Crucially, this means competitors are any solution – product, service, workaround, manual process, even doing nothing – that helps customers achieve desired outcomes related to the core Job. They don't need to be in your industry, use similar technology, or even look remotely like your offering.

Elevating the Abstraction: Seeing the Bigger Picture

One of the most powerful aspects of JTBD is understanding competition at different levels of abstraction. Focusing solely on direct feature comparisons keeps you at the lowest level. By elevating your perspective to the core functional or even emotional Job, the competitive set expands dramatically – and often reveals your most dangerous hidden threats.

Consider this example:

• Low Abstraction (Solution Focus): You make spreadsheet software. Your competitors are other spreadsheet software providers (e.g., Excel vs. Google Sheets vs. Numbers). Competition revolves around features, price, compatibility.

• Medium Abstraction (Functional Job Focus): The Job is Analyze business data. Now, your competitors include not just other spreadsheets, but also Business Intelligence (BI) tools, statistical software packages, and even notebooks paired with calculators. The basis of competition shifts towards analytical power, ease of reporting, and data integration.

• High Abstraction (Core Need/Outcome Focus): The Job is Make informed business decisions. The competitive set explodes. It includes all the previous solutions plus business consultants, industry research reports, experienced mentors, executive intuition, peer networking groups, or even specialized AI advisors. Competition is now about trust, insight quality, strategic impact, and decision confidence.

Why is this elevation critical? Because disruptive innovation often happens when a new solution gets the higher-level Job done more effectively, efficiently, or conveniently, often by integrating or simplifying steps. Think about how smartphone cameras (Job: Capture and share memories) disrupted the market for simple point-and-shoot cameras (Job: Take photographs). The new solution addressed the higher-level need more completely.

Future solutions frequently obfuscate the need for today's complex collection of tools and expertise. A future AI-powered decision engine might make today's intricate BI dashboards and manual analysis seem archaic by directly providing the insights needed for the high-level job, requiring far fewer visible 'features' and potentially serving entirely different users within an organization. Identifying competitors requires anticipating these shifts driven by higher-level Job fulfillment.

How JTBD Uncovers Non-Traditional & Hidden Competitors

By focusing on the Job and its desired outcomes, JTBD systematically surfaces competitors missed by traditional analysis:

• Functional Job Competitors: Solutions achieving the same practical outcomes via entirely different mechanisms. Example: For the Job of Communicate project updates to the team, competitors could include email threads, Slack channels, project management software notifications, stand-up meetings, or even a shared whiteboard.

• Emotional Job Competitors: Solutions addressing the underlying feelings, social aspects, or identity associated with the Job. Example: For the Job of Feel connected with professional peers, competitors might include LinkedIn, industry conferences, exclusive clubs, alumni networks, or even a regular informal lunch group.

• Circumstance-Driven Competitors: The context dramatically shapes the competitive set. Example: For the Job of Obtain a mid-day meal, the competitors change based on circumstance. If you're at your desk with only 15 minutes, competitors are microwave meals, delivery apps (if fast enough), or maybe just a snack bar. If you have an hour for a client lunch, the competitors are sit-down restaurants.

• Non-Consumption & Workarounds: Often, the biggest competitor is the customer's decision to not use any formal solution. They might use a complicated workaround, struggle through with inadequate tools, or simply abandon the Job altogether because current options are too expensive, complex, or inaccessible. Understanding why people aren't hiring existing solutions is crucial for identifying massive market opportunities.

Putting it into Practice: A Mini-Framework

Ready to start uncovering your hidden competitors? Here’s a simplified process:

1. Define the Core Job(s): Talk to your customers (and potential customers). Go beyond surface-level discussions about your product. Ask why they need it, what progress they are trying to make. Frame it using clear, action-oriented Job Statements. Use verbs like Monitor, Communicate, Prepare, Analyze, Achieve, Organize, Prevent, Decide. (e.g., Monitor key performance indicators in real-time; Decide on the optimal resource allocation).

2. Identify Desired Outcomes: For each core Job, map out the metrics customers use to measure success. How do they know they've done the Job well? (e.g., "Minimize the time required to gather necessary data," "Maximize the accuracy of the forecast," "Reduce the anxiety associated with making the decision").

3. Brainstorm All Current Solutions: Based on the Job and outcomes, list every way people are getting the Job done today. Be exhaustive. Include:

   • Direct competitors (the obvious ones)

   • Indirect competitors (different categories, same Job)

   • Analog solutions (pen & paper, manual processes)

   • Internal solutions (DIY efforts within a company)

   • Workarounds (how people cope when solutions are poor)

   • Non-consumption (why people might not be doing the Job)

   • This list represents your true competitive landscape.

4. Analyze Based on Outcomes: Evaluate these diverse solutions based on how well they help customers achieve their desired outcomes (speed, accuracy, cost, convenience, predictability, etc.), not just on their features. Where are the significant gaps in the market? Where are non-traditional players surprisingly effective?

Conclusion: Strategic Advantage Through a Wider Lens

Focusing on Jobs-to-be-Done transforms competitor analysis from a reactive, limited exercise into a proactive, strategic tool. It provides a wider, more accurate, and future-proof understanding of the forces shaping your market.

By seeing competition through the lens of the customer's true Job, you can:

• Identify threats from unexpected directions before they disrupt your business.

• Uncover opportunities for innovation by addressing unmet outcomes.

• Develop differentiation strategies based on solving the Job better, not just adding features.

• Build resilience by understanding the fundamental needs your business serves.

Stop being surprised by the competition. Start understanding the Job.

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What's the core Job your customers are trying to get done? Share one 'hidden competitor' you identified using this thinking in the comments below!

If you’d like to take action, I would love to help. Here’s are some steps you can take to make that a reality for us:

1. Join my community and get access to more content and tools

2. Apply for coaching so we can do projects together and build a new business-as-usual with someone who will share the knowledge, and hold you accountable. (I have limited seats so hurry!)

3. I do project work as well. Use the coaching link and we can discuss.

Why Me?

I’ve been trained by the best in Outcome-Driven Innovation. Part of that training involved how to understand what the future should look like. As a result, I’ve taken what I’ve learned and begun innovating so I can get you to the outcomes you’re seeking faster, better, and even more predictably. Anyone preaching innovation should be doing the same; regardless of how disruptive it’ll be.

How am I doing this?

• I’ve developed a complete toolset that accelerates qualitative research to mere hours instead of the weeks or months it used to take. It’s been fine-tuned over the past 2+ years and it’s second-to-none (including to humans). That means we can have far more certainty that we’ve properly framed your research before you invest in a basket of road apples. They don’t taste good, even with whipped cream on top.

• I’m also working on a completely new concept for prioritizing market dynamics that predict customer needs (and success) without requiring time-consuming and costly surveys with low quality participants. This is far more powerful and cost effective than the point-in-time surveys that I know you don’t want to do!

I believe that an innovation consultant should eat their own dog food. Therefore, we must always strive to:

• Get more of the job done for our clients

• Get the job done better for our clients

• Get the job done faster for our clients

• Get the job done with with fewer features for our clients

• Get the job done in a completely different and novel way for our clients

• Get the job done in a less costly manner for our clients

You could be an early tester of the latest developments, but at a minimum take advantage of an approach that is light years ahead of incumbent firms that are still pitching a 30 year old growth strategy process.

All the links you need are a few paragraphs up. Or set up some time to talk … that link is down below. 👇🏻

Mike Boysen - www.pjtbd.com
Why fail fast when you can succeed the first time?

📆 Book an appointment: https://pjtbd.com/book-mike