Understanding Where Win Loss Analysis Will Help

by Ken Allred, August 26, 2009

95% of Product Management Activities can be Improved with Win Loss Analysis

This past week, my family and I spent some time on Lake Powell with some good friends on a houseboat. If you have never had an opportunity to experience Lake Powell, I highly recommend it: Except for a storm the last night (which claimed 13 boats, but fortunately no lives), the weather was fantastic for us.

The six days of absolute peacefulness (that is, before the 50 mph winds and 6- to 7- foot waves caused by the storm) allowed me to do some in-depth reflection on the impact that a win loss analysis program can really have on an organization. Recently, Pragmatic Marketing updated their product management and product marketing Framework and moved Win Loss Analysis next to what they have identified as the cornerstone of the framework: Market Problems.

As I studied the framework, I realized that win loss analysis can have a meaningful impact on nearly all of the key strategic and tactical responsibilities that product managers and marketers have. In fact, with Pragmatic Marketings permission, I have identified all of the areas that I have seen win loss analysis have an impact on over the past decadethese areas are the ones shaded in blue in the following graphic:

Thats right: in my experience, win loss analysis can have a positive influence on nearly 95 percent of a product manager/marketers responsibilities. That surprised even me.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I will take each of the activities that I have identified where win loss analysis can have an impact and illustrate some best practices and real world examples of how this mission critical function can help you more effectively fulfill the key strategic and tactical activities that are necessary for the successful management and marketing of your products.

We will be working our way through the strategic activities first before moving through the tactical activities. For each activity, we will discuss the following:

1. Specific questions and language to use to maximize results
2. Best practices for ensuring success
3. Real world examples where win loss has helped
4. How to leverage the data gathered
5. What benefits you can expect
6. Potential obstacles and how to overcome them

This discussion should help to improve the results you are seeing from your current win loss program, shore up any gaps, identify additional opportunities to leverage your current investment, and help you realize an even greater return on your program.

About the Author: Ken Allred, Founder and CEO of Primary Intelligence, is a thought leader in SaaS-based sales intelligence, analytics and sales enablement solutions. He is committed to the optimization of sales, marketing and product management teams through the implementation of advanced Sales 2.0 intelligence solutions.