10 Claude Prompts for Competitive Analysis
The sequence strategy consultants use to turn raw competitor data into a defensible competitive position. Ten copy-paste prompts covering competitor profiling, market position analysis, threat prioritization, and the board-ready competitive narrative.
Free skills and prompts for Claude and strategy work
Templates for Claude, ChatGPT and Perplexity — from diagnostics to board-ready decks.
What this is
Ten ready-to-use Claude prompts for competitive analysis work in management consulting. They cover the full workstream: from deconstructing how a competitor actually makes money and assessing the durability of their moat, through mapping the competitive landscape and diagnosing market share shifts, to war-gaming responses and building the board-ready narrative.
The prompts are built for strategy consultants who need Claude to produce structured, evidence-based outputs rather than generic competitor summaries. Each prompt forces explicit reasoning about what is known vs. inferred, and uses named methods where they apply: moat classification, Pyramid Principle narrative structure, and scenario planning with probability-weighted contingencies.
Use them individually on whichever part of the competitive analysis is stuck, or run the full sequence from profiling through to strategic recommendation. Each prompt includes a clear trigger, a fully written copy-paste template with {{placeholders}} the user fills in, and a note on the expected output.
These prompts pair well with the issue framing prompts. Competitive analysis is most useful when it is anchored to a precisely framed strategic question, so running the framing sequence first produces sharper competitive findings.
The 10 Prompts
The prompts are grouped into three phases of competitive analysis work. Click any prompt to expand it and copy the full text.
Competitor Profiling
Use these before building any competitive positioning or strategy recommendation. They force Claude to work from evidence rather than reputation - deconstructing how a competitor actually makes money, how defensible their position is, and what their cost structure implies about their strategic priorities.
Competitor Business Model Deconstruction
Use when: You need to understand how a competitor actually makes money, not just what they sell
Output: Revenue model breakdown, key cost drivers, margin structure hypothesis, and strategic implications for the client
Competitive Moat Assessment
Use when: You need to assess how defensible a competitor's market position is before recommending a move against them
Output: Moat type classification, durability rating, attack vectors, and time-to-erode estimate per moat
Competitor Cost Structure Inference
Use when: You need to estimate a competitor's unit economics from public data to assess their pricing floor and investment capacity
Output: Inferred cost structure by category, estimated contribution margin, pricing floor, and investment headroom
Market Position Analysis
Use these once the individual competitors are profiled. They translate individual competitor data into a structured read of the competitive landscape: who owns what position, why market share has moved, and how competitors are likely to respond to the client's next move.
Competitive Positioning Map
Use when: You need to visualize the competitive space and identify white space before defining the client's strategy
Output: Two-axis positioning map with competitor placements, white space identification, and recommended axes rationale
Market Share Shift Analysis
Use when: Market share has moved and you need to diagnose why before attributing credit or blame
Output: Share shift decomposition by driver, winner/loser classification per competitor, and forward trajectory
Competitive Response Prediction
Use when: You are recommending a strategic move and need to anticipate how competitors will react before the recommendation goes to the board
Output: Predicted response per competitor, response timeline, escalation scenarios, and recommended pre-emption moves
Strategic Implications
Use these at the end of the competitive analysis workstream, when the findings need to translate into a recommendation the client can act on. They prioritize the threat landscape, identify where differentiation is real vs. assumed, stress-test the strategy against competitive futures, and build the board-ready narrative.
Competitive Threat Prioritization
Use when: You have multiple competitors and need to focus the team's attention on the threats that actually matter
Output: Ranked threat list with impact and timing scores, must-watch vs. monitor classification, and recommended response per tier
Differentiation Gap Analysis
Use when: You need to identify where the client is meaningfully different vs. where it is delivering table stakes that don't justify a premium
Output: Differentiation scorecard per attribute, real vs. perceived differentiation classification, and highest-leverage differentiation investments
Competitive Scenario Planning
Use when: You need to stress-test a recommended strategy against different competitive futures before presenting to the board
Output: Three competitive scenarios with probability, impact on strategy, and recommended contingency trigger per scenario
Board-Ready Competitive Narrative
Use when: The competitive findings need to go into an executive pre-read or board deck with a clear so-what
Output: Pyramid-structured narrative: competitive context, key threats, client's defensible position, and strategic recommendation
How to use
Find the prompt you need
Each prompt is named for the situation it addresses. The group headings divide the prompts by phase - start with Competitor Profiling if you need to understand the players, or jump to Strategic Implications if the profiling work is done and you need to build the recommendation.
Copy and fill the placeholders
Click Show prompt on the card, then hit Copy. Fill in every {{placeholder}} with your engagement details before pasting into Claude. The placeholders are labelled to make clear what each one expects: competitor name, sector, known data sources, or proposed strategic move.
Paste into Claude and iterate
Paste the filled prompt into claude.ai and run it. Claude Sonnet 4.6 handles the structured reasoning well. For deeper moat assessments and scenario planning, Claude Opus 4.8 produces more nuanced analysis.
Tip
For a full competitive analysis workstream, run prompts 1 through 6 in sequence: profile the key competitors, map their positions, and diagnose market share shifts before moving to threat prioritization and the recommendation. The output of each prompt feeds the next.
When to use each prompt
Not every engagement needs all ten. Match the prompt to where the competitive analysis is currently stuck.
What these prompts are built for
Andrew Persh
Founder, Oria
Former McKinsey consultant turned product builder. Andrew founded Oria to help professionals create boardroom-ready presentations without the formatting overhead.