Battle Scanner

Battle Scanner (ARMOR Analysis)

Deconstruct competitor strategy, surface exploitable weaknesses, predict their responses to your moves, and generate win/loss playbooks.

When to Use

• Pre-launch competitive assessment
• Competitive deal strategy
• Quarterly competitive landscape refresh
• New competitor entering the market
• Win rate declining against specific competitor

What You'll Need

Critical inputs (ask if not provided):

• Your product/company name and category
• Top 3-5 known competitors

Nice-to-have:

• Signal Radar output (competitive threat signals)
• Win/loss data from CRM
• Customer feedback mentioning competitors

Process

Step 1: 4-Ring Competitor Classification

Map every competitor into concentric rings:

| Ring | Type | Threat Level | Examples | |------|------|-------------|----------| | Ring 1 | Direct -- same problem, same approach | Highest | Head-to-head feature competitors | | Ring 2 | Indirect -- same problem, different approach | High | Alternative solution categories | | Ring 3 | Adjacent -- different problem, could pivot | Medium | Companies with overlapping capabilities | | Ring 4 | Substitute -- manual/DIY/status quo | Baseline | Spreadsheets, manual processes, in-house builds |

Step 2: ARMOR Deep Dive (per Ring 1-2 competitor)

Analyze each competitor across 5 dimensions:

| Dimension | What to Analyze | Key Questions | |-----------|----------------|---------------| | Architecture | Product architecture, tech stack, scalability | What are their technical limitations? Where is their tech debt? | | Reputation | Brand perception, NPS, review scores, analyst position | Where do customers love them? Where do customers complain? | | Moat | Defensibility -- network effects, data, switching costs, IP | What makes them hard to displace? What is their weakest moat? | | Openings | Exploitable weaknesses -- complaints, gaps, pricing issues | Where are they vulnerable RIGHT NOW? | | Response Prediction | How they will respond to your launch | Will they: fast-follow, price war, FUD, ignore, or acquire? |

For Response Prediction, consider:

• Their resources (cash, team size, engineering velocity)
• Their strategic priorities (are they focused elsewhere?)
• Historical behavior (how did they react to past competitive moves?)

Step 3: Win/Loss Pattern Extraction

For each Ring 1 competitor, document:

• Win scenarios: When and why we beat them (deal stage, buyer type, use case)
• Loss scenarios: When and why they beat us (same breakdown)
• Swing factors: What tips deals one way or the other
• Killer questions: Questions that expose their weaknesses in a sales conversation
• Trap questions: Questions they ask to make us look bad (and how to handle them)

Step 4: Competitive Landscape Summary

Create the master competitive landscape document with:

• Market positioning map (2x2 or multi-axis)
• Per-competitor ARMOR summary (1 paragraph each)
• Top 3 strategic competitive moves to make in next 90 days

Output

Save to outputs/battle-scanner-[YYYY-MM-DD].md

Deliverables:

1. Competitive Landscape Map: 4-ring visual with all competitors classified and ARMOR-scored
2. Competitor Profiles: Per-competitor ARMOR deep dive with evidence
3. Win/Loss Playbooks: Scenario-based guides for competitive deal situations
4. Response Prediction Matrix: How each competitor will likely react to your launch with counter-strategies

Chain Connections

• Next skill: Run competitive-exec-brief to create the executive-ready PPTX summary
• Also feeds: position-lock (competitive gaps inform positioning), enablement-forge (battle cards become sales assets)
• Enhanced by: Run after signal-radar (signals reveal competitive threats) and whitespace-finder (gaps show where competitors are weak)

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: varunk130
• Source: varunk130/ai-gtm-skill-library
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.