Incumbent Analysis

Frequently, you’re up against the incumbent and may think the incumbent has the upper hand because they can easily leverage their experience and relationships with the client into a renewed contract. Above everything else, the incumbent has the advantage of engaging with the client daily. They most likely have priceless knowledge about that prospect, such as their business needs, solutions used, financial/budget issues, leadership changes, and the company road map.

There’s also inertia: staying the course is typically the path of least resistance, while changing vendors usually triggers planning, due diligence, and agreement from a myriad of groups throughout the organization.

Convincing a prospect that you offer the best solution and should make the changeover to your solution may appear to be a challenging task. There are ways to win prospects over and beat the incumbent.

In order to find out to best the incumbent, interview the client and asked what factors the incumbent lacked that could have put them in a vulnerable position. Clients frequently look for ways to gain added benefits you can provide. This analysis attempts to address this element of the capture process.