varunk130 Competitive Exec Brief (SHARP Framework)
Transform competitive intelligence into a polished executive-ready brief with a single PowerPoint slide that tells the competitive story at a glance.
When to Use
- Board meeting competitive updates
- Leadership team strategy reviews
- Investor presentations (competitive landscape slide)
- Quarterly business reviews
- Pre-launch executive briefings
What You'll Need
Critical inputs (ask if not provided):
- Battle Scanner output (or competitor list + your product)
- Audience (board, C-suite, investors, team)
Nice-to-have:
- Market Analyzer output (market sizing context)
- Recent win/loss data
- Brand/color guidelines for PPTX
Process
Step 1: SHARP Distillation
Take the full competitive analysis and distill into 5 executive-ready elements:
| Element | What It Captures | Max Length |
|---|---|---|
| Situation | Current competitive landscape in 2-3 sentences | 50 words |
| Highlights | Top 3 competitive moves/changes since last review | 3 bullets |
| Advantages | Our top 3 defensible differentiators with proof points | 3 bullets |
| Risks | Top 3 competitive threats ranked by likelihood x impact | 3 bullets |
| Plan | Recommended competitive actions for next 90 days | 3 bullets |
Rule: Executives need signal, not noise. Every word must earn its place.
Step 2: Positioning Map
Create a 2x2 positioning matrix:
- Choose the 2 axes that most differentiate you favorably
- Suggested axis pairs: Ease-of-use vs. Power, Price vs. Completeness, Innovation vs. Maturity, Vertical-specific vs. Horizontal
- Place all Ring 1 and Ring 2 competitors on the map
- You should occupy the most attractive quadrant
- If you don't, explain why and what the plan is to get there
Step 3: Competitive Snapshot Table
One row per competitor, maximum 6 competitors:
| Column | Content |
|---|---|
| Competitor | Name and logo (if available) |
| Positioning | Their tagline/positioning in 5 words |
| Strength | Their #1 advantage over us |
| Weakness | Their #1 exploitable vulnerability |
| Our Win Rate | % of competitive deals we win against them |
| Trend | Arrow: improving, stable, declining |
Step 4: Executive PPTX Slide
Generate a single PowerPoint slide containing:
- Title: "Competitive Landscape -- [Quarter/Year]"
- Left half: 2x2 positioning map with competitor logos/names plotted
- Right half: SHARP summary (Situation + Highlights + Advantages + Risks + Plan)
- Footer: Key metric -- overall competitive win rate and trend
Use the ppt-deck-generator skill or python-pptx to create the actual .pptx file.
Slide design rules:
- Max 40 words of body text (the rest is visual)
- Use color coding: green = advantage, red = risk, blue = neutral
- One clear takeaway in the slide title (not generic "Competitive Landscape" but specific like "We're winning on [X] but losing ground on [Y]")
Step 5: Talking Points
Prepare 5 executive talking points (for the presenter):
- The headline: What is the competitive situation in one sentence?
- The change: What has shifted since last review?
- The opportunity: Where can we gain ground?
- The risk: What keeps you up at night competitively?
- The ask: What do you need from leadership to win?
Output
Save to:
outputs/competitive-brief-[YYYY-MM-DD].md(the full brief)outputs/competitive-brief-[YYYY-MM-DD].pptx(the exec slide)
Deliverables:
- SHARP Executive Brief: 1-page written brief with all 5 elements
- Positioning Map: 2x2 visual with competitors plotted
- Competitive Snapshot Table: At-a-glance comparison of top competitors
- PPTX Slide: Single exec-ready PowerPoint slide for presentations
- Talking Points: 5 presenter-ready points for the executive meeting
Chain Connections
- Next skill: Run
position-lockto lock down your positioning based on competitive insights - Also feeds:
enablement-forge(brief becomes a sales enablement asset),launch-command(competitive readiness is a launch gate) - Enhanced by: Run after
battle-scanner(provides the raw competitive intelligence to distill)