"Market Attractiveness" bucket and "Competitive Landscape" bucket - are they MECE?

Hey there,

Whether or not top-level buckets are MECE, depends on the lower-level, more concrete ideas. Your example would be MECE since 

• market attractiveness focuses solely on the market size, growth potential, think of it as the pie
• the competitors, their size, growth, think of it as how the pie is split

To determine if your framework is MECE, always think from the position of an engagement manager trying to divide workstreams to the team. Can two people work on those two branches separately without getting into each other's way? If the answer is yes, then you have created a MECE structure.

Cheers,

Florian

Hi there,

This is indeed an interesting question which is probably relevant for quite a lot of users, so I am happy to provide my perspective on it:

• Generally speaking, you cannot tell whether the structure is MECE unless you see the whole structure across all levels. As such, could you maybe provide the whole structure to assess it?
• Still, from a first glance, it seems to be mutually exclusive (ME). Again, you cannot tell whether the structure is collectively exhaustive (CE).
• When designing a structure, I would advise you think like a project manager who wants to divide tasks among team members - as soon as you feel two team members would work on the same task, the structure is no longer mutually exclusive (ME).

In case you want a more detailed discussion on how to structure any type of case study, please feel free to contact me directly.

I hope this helps,

Hagen

Your structure is Mutually Exclusive (can't say about the Collectivelly Exhaustive without knowing the question). I do not see any overlap.

As Florian said, it's really about making sure you have no overlaps at second level.

Hi there,

First, I'm assuming you're referencing just these 2 buckets and not the rest (as we'd have to look at how well we perform in the market, how we'd enter, etc.).

In terms of their ME-ness (Mutually Exclusiveness), they absolutely are! If you wanted to, this could be 1 bucket. You could even throw in customers there. As long as you're talking about the market itself and the dynamics within, that can be one bucket.

Alternatively, you can say a) Is the market as a whole good and b) Are the dynamics within it good (competition). This also works!

It's all about how you define your point of seperation. Make sense?

Dear anonymous

From a perspective of taking a step back and structure at the very high level: competitors are indeed part of the market (and market attractiveness / unattractiveness). For instance, competitors influence the market size and growth, also consumers. By separating these into different buckets, a certain level of overlap takes place.

If we are to put a bucket for “Market Research / Attractiveness", we should therefore not only include its size and grow, but also competitors, trends, consumers behaviour, etc. All of these aspects will through light on the potential market´s essentials.

I hope that helps

Pedro