Every once in a whiIe a post or article will appear that raises concerns about using market maps, especially those created by consulting firms for strategy analysis and where high fees are charged. These market maps have the general appearance, according to Roger Martin on Medium, “where product categories are often arrayed along the x-axis and geographies or price tiers along the y-axis (or vice versa). And the coloring is often growth rate or market share.” The true value of these types of maps can be argued at length, but I totally agree with Mr. Martin’s summary view, “the best way to treat a market map is as a spur to more thinking — not the answer.”
As a research tool used to form my own content and analysis, I have come to highly value open access market maps. These maps are made available for the general public on social media, websites, and online platforms of the producers/creators. They are created by subject expert authors, founders, venture capitalists, consultants, non-profits, and service and solution providers, to name a few. Most open maps are more simplistic compared to for-fee offerings. For innovation discovery, there is no other tool where you can easily and freely identify startups (and at times, established companies) that are innovating in various markets, especially tech-forward/heavy markets. They are starting points for discovering potential suppliers, partners, and/or competitors and most are accompanied by a nice brief analysis of the market.
The main thing to clarify, as Mr. Martin expressed, is that a market map should not be viewed as an ultimate truth. There are many negative aspects on relying too heavily on a single entity’s view of a market. The best way to use market maps are as a stepping stone, a starting point to researching a market. Also, these maps are helpful in defining a particular market. A competitive intelligence or market research project should start with first defining the market being researched. A first step to fully defining a market is by understanding how its services and products are categorized and the market map, via a simple visual, provides this efficiently. The more market maps one can access on a particular market, the better. As with all research resources, the more viewpoints the better. Finding similar categorization and companies that appear on the majority of the maps consulted, greatly increases the validity of the information.
Last but not least, here is a shout out and thank you to all the map creators who take the time to share their expertise with the rest of us. Your efforts and willingness to freely provide your work is appreciated more than you know.
