It seems you can’t go to a Product Management blog these days without running into a post on Win/Loss analysis! 🙂
Two new Product Management blogs both recently covered the topic.
Stewart Rogers started Strategic Product Manager on January 3. One of his first posts is entitled:
Stewart writes:
A big part of being successful is to refine what is working today and make it better. Not so much from a “make faster horses” perspective, but maybe you can extend the reach to a new market or better enable the sales team to win some of the losses with stronger positioning.
Sue Raisty-Egami also has the beginnings of a great blog on the home page of her consulting company SURE Product Consulting. She too posted a Win/Loss piece recently:
Sue explains the logic behind performing Win/Loss:
…without understanding why you are winning deals and why you are losing, how are you to know what you’re doing right and what you need to change? Are your sales people blowing it by not properly qualifying the deal or understanding the prospect’s problems? Is your product a true winner or is it deficient in critical ways?  Are your products priced competitively? Are you lacking in other components of the big picture, such as professional services or customer support?
Both blogs are in their infancy, but each already has several informative posts; foreshadowing more good content to come. Check them out and add them to your regular reading.
Saeed