All successful businesses have one thing in common – they stay ahead of the curve. Accordingly, they are consistently improving and innovating their products in order to keep an edge over their competitors. So how does one stay competitive in a saturated field? One way is to conduct a competitive teardown analysis. Through competitive analysis, engineers can fully understand all aspects of the product such as what are the components and materials used in the design.
What is a Competitive Teardown Analysis?
A product teardown is disassembling a product strategically with the goal of identifying its component parts. This includes a detailed analysis of the hardware, software/firmware, material, system, process and costs. A competitive teardown analysis will also look at other dimensions of your product like reliability and functionality. It can be a rather large undertaking, so it is important to make sure you understand the reasons to do one and tips to make it worth your time.
6 Reasons Businesses Do a Competitive Teardown Analysis
Infringement Analysis– Teardowns are often conducted when a company or individual speculates a product is using their intellectual property without consent. A high quality competitive teardown can lead to Evidence-of-Use (EoU) charts to provide solid proof that a patented method, product, system, service, or otherwise a trade secret was used in a particular product.
Component Analysis – Bill of Materials (BoM) is a comprehensive list of materials, assemblies and components used to manufacture a product. A BoM can give engineers helpful insight into every detail of a product. It also can be used to recover underlying product designs when the original design documents are lost or the original designers are no longer available.
Product Analysis – Breaking down the product is important to understand a product’s weaknesses, strengths, and areas of improvement to spur sustainable growth for your company. Without all the information gained through a competitive teardown analysis, it can be difficult to improve your current products. When you know the product’s strengths and weaknesses when compared to the competition, you can make adjustments to ensure a more competitive product in the market.
Benchmarking – Doing a competitive product analysis is a useful process through which you can evaluate and compare your products to those of your competitors. Through this side-by-side comparison, you can see how your product and technology stacks up against the competition.
New Product Development – Another reason to do a competitive teardown analysis is to gain valuable insights into the development of new products. If you can see the holes in the market and where competitors are falling short, then you will be able to find new product ideas or further advance the capabilities of your product. Either way product teardowns can indicate how to make a product match the needs and desires of your customers.
Lower Costs – Product teardown can assist in cutting down on manufacturing costs. When the product’s details are completely understood, it helps companies discover areas that they can reduce costs such as scaling down on components in the design or minimizing the size of the product for easier, smaller packaging options.
The Competitive Teardown Process
The process for completing a competitive teardown analysis will vary a little bit depending on the exact product and the business, but the general process will be the same across the board.
- The first thing you should do is identify the purpose of the analysis in order to stay focused on the task at hand. Teardown analysis is a long, tedious task so you want it to be worth your time and ensure the right models are being used to get results that will be helpful.
- Create a data sheet where all the results and insights you gain can be recorded. You will want a detailed report that you can review at a later date.
- Gather all the tools and documentations you will use during the process.
- Evaluate and analyze the distribution of the product to see how it is reaching the market.
- Examine and take apart the actual product itself and measure all the components and functions.
- Once these steps are done you can create a bill of materials, models, and diagrams to show the function and details of the product.
GHB Intellect Services
At GHB Intellect, product teardown is one of our specialties. In our engineering support department, we have deep-domain expertise and highly sophisticated lab equipment to enable thorough and high-quality reverse engineering and cost analyses.
GHB Intellect is a full-service intellectual property and engineering consulting firm with over a decade of experience. We provide intellectual property consulting services ranging from product teardowns to IP monetization.
Contact GHB Intellect today to learn more about how we can help you with intellectual property.