wehub-resource-sync
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Competitor Landscape Guide
Guide Origin: Official | ArcKit Version: [VERSION]
/arckit:competitors discovers competitor landscape intelligence — rival suppliers, awarded-value market share, head-to-head comparison, and concentration — from live UK procurement notices via the UK Tenders MCP.
Agent Architecture: This command uses a three-tier reader/writer subagent split. The
arckit-tenders-readersubagent fetches evidence from the UK Tenders MCP (shared with/arckit:tenders, keeping that I/O isolated from your main context window). The orchestrator tier (the slash command) validates the reader's JSON payload against thetenders-handoff.schema.jsonschema and computes deterministic derived fields, including the supplier-rivalry head-to-head. Thearckit-competitors-writersubagent then renders the final artefact. The slash command launches and coordinates both agents.
What is Competitor Landscape Intelligence?
Competitor landscape intelligence is the systematic analysis of real awarded-contract data to understand who else is winning work in a capability space — their share of awarded value, which buyers they serve, and how a focal supplier compares against each rival.
Key questions answered:
- Who are the rival suppliers in this capability space, and what is their awarded-value share?
- How does a named supplier compare against each rival (shared buyers, recent wins)?
- How concentrated is the competitive landscape — is one supplier dominant?
- Which government buyers are active in this space?
Mandatory caveat. Awarded value is not actual spend; figures are for market context and benchmarking, not the costed Economic Case. Never use CMPT figures as the cost line in a Green Book / Orange Book Economic Case without independent substantiation.
When to Use
- Before a vendor evaluation — understand who has already won similar work and at what scale
- Before scoping a competition — know the realistic supplier pool and whether concentration is a risk
- When building a Company Experience scorecard — rival award history provides comparative context for
/arckit:score - When assessing a sole-source or incumbent renewal — evidence the broader competitive landscape
- As part of a build-vs-buy analysis — quantify the commercial supply depth alongside
/arckit:research
Prerequisites and Dependencies
| Artefact | Dependency | Why |
|---|---|---|
Requirements (ARC-*-REQ-*.md) |
OPTIONAL | Capability keywords and CPV codes can be derived from DR/FR/INT requirements |
Architecture Principles (ARC-000-PRIN-*.md) |
OPTIONAL | Identifies the organisational context for capability scoping |
Vendor Profiles (vendors/{slug}-profile.md) |
ENRICHED | Pre-existing vendor profiles gain an enriched Government Award History section |
Risk Register (ARC-*-RISK-*.md) |
DOWNSTREAM | Supplier-concentration findings feed R-xxx concentration/single-supplier-dependency risks |
Inputs
The command accepts three input forms, which can be combined:
| Input | Flag / Form | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Supplier focus (focal supplier) | --supplier 'Name' |
/arckit:competitors --supplier 'Acme Cloud Ltd' |
| Capability (free text) | bare arguments | /arckit:competitors cloud hosting |
| CPV code | --cpv NNNNNNNN |
/arckit:competitors --cpv 72200000 |
Use --supplier 'Name' to run a supplier-focus query: the named supplier becomes the focal point and the command produces a head-to-head comparison against each rival. Without --supplier, the command runs in capability-focus mode: it returns the full competitive set ranked by awarded-value share, with no focal supplier or head-to-head.
You can combine flags: /arckit:competitors cloud hosting --cpv 72200000 --supplier 'Acme Cloud Ltd'.
CPV code format: eight digits, optionally followed by a division suffix (NNNNNNNN-N). Common codes:
| Code | Category |
|---|---|
| 72200000 | Software-related services |
| 72300000 | Data services |
| 72600000 | IT support and consultancy |
| 48000000 | Software packages and systems |
| 79000000 | Business services |
| 73000000 | R&D services |
Scenario Matrix
| Scenario | Prompt | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Capability landscape | /arckit:competitors digital identity verification |
Rival suppliers ranked by awarded-value share |
| Supplier head-to-head | /arckit:competitors --supplier 'Acme Cloud Ltd' |
Focal supplier vs each rival |
| Scoped supplier analysis | /arckit:competitors --cpv 72600000 --supplier 'Acme Cloud Ltd' |
Focal supplier vs rivals in a specific CPV |
| Market concentration check | /arckit:competitors cloud hosting --cpv 72200000 |
Concentration flag and supply-base depth |
| Vendor evaluation context | /arckit:competitors managed security operations |
Who is winning, at what value, for which buyers |
Command
/arckit:competitors [project-number-or-name] <--supplier 'Name' | capability | --cpv NNNNNNNN>
Outputs: projects/<id>/research/ARC-<id>-CMPT-<NNN>-v1.0.md
Multi-instance type:
CMPTartefacts are sequenced within the project'sresearch/directory. Re-running produces a new numbered artefact (CMPT-001,CMPT-002, …) rather than overwriting the previous run.
Long runs: Remote Control + push notifications
/arckit:competitors can take several minutes when the UK Tenders MCP needs to page through large result sets. To avoid babysitting the terminal, pair it with Claude Code Remote Control:
claude remote-control
Drive the session from claude.ai/code or the mobile app, then enable /config → Push when Claude decides so your phone gets a notification on completion. ArcKit's minimum Claude Code floor (v2.1.121) already covers the v2.1.110 RC requirement.
Caveats: Pro/Max plans only (no API keys, no Bedrock/Vertex/Foundry), push is a single on/off so chatty agents can over-notify, and the local claude process must keep running.
Artefact Sections
A completed CMPT artefact contains:
- Executive Summary — 3–5 key findings, concentration flag, focal supplier position (supplier-focus runs only).
- Query Scope — recorded focus, CPV, supplier, keywords, date range so the run is reproducible.
- Competitive Set — rival suppliers ranked by awarded-value share %, with award counts and key buyers.
- Focal Supplier — on supplier-focus runs, the named supplier's awarded value, award count, and share pulled out of the competitive set.
- Head-to-Head — on supplier-focus runs, the focal supplier compared against each rival: shared buyers, rival's most recent win. Renders not-applicable on capability-focus runs.
- Per-Rival Buyer Relationships and Recent Wins — short prose per rival derived from the data.
- Concentration — top-1 / top-3 share and a
HIGH/MEDIUM/LOWflag with the rule applied. - Representative Notices — sample award notices with their
notice_url(required for OGL attribution). - Data Freshness and Source Health —
Data current as of <ISO datetime>or a freshness-unavailable note when the status endpoint was unreachable. - Caveats — including the mandatory awarded-value caveat.
Concentration Flag Rules
| Flag | Condition |
|---|---|
HIGH |
Top-1 supplier share > 50% or top-3 supplier share > 80% |
MEDIUM |
Top-3 supplier share > 60% (and HIGH conditions not met) |
LOW |
All other cases |
A HIGH concentration flag should be registered as a supplier-dependency risk in the project Risk Register (/arckit:risk).
Vendor Profile Enrichment
When a project already has a vendor profile (vendors/{slug}-profile.md) for a rival supplier, the arckit-competitors-writer subagent enriches that profile's Government Award History section with the award data from the competitive set. This means running /arckit:competitors before /arckit:score gives the score command richer comparative evidence to work with.
The writer performs a bounded section-merge — it updates only the ## Government Award History section of pre-existing profiles. It does not create new profile files.
Data Source
| Property | Detail |
|---|---|
| MCP server | uk-tenders (keyless, deferred load, shared with /arckit:tenders) |
| Coverage | ~677,000 UK contracting processes across five national portals |
| Portals covered | Find a Tender Service (FTS), Contracts Finder, Public Contracts Scotland, Sell2Wales, eTendersNI |
| Refresh cadence | Nightly |
| Availability | Best-effort single Cloud Run instance — no formal SLA. A dead endpoint degrades gracefully (the reader returns partial data and the artefact renders with degraded-source notes). |
| Licence | Open Government Licence v3.0 (OGL v3.0) |
| Attribution | Every notice record carries its official notice_url; artefacts must include the OGL v3.0 attribution line |
OGL Attribution
Every CMPT artefact includes the attribution line:
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
The source data is re-published by the UK Tenders MCP from official UK procurement portals verbatim under the OGL v3.0. Every supplier figure and share percentage in the artefact traces to a notice_url citation from the relevant portal.
Evaluation Criteria Explained
The reader returns evidence across five procurement portals, ranked internally by:
| Criterion | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Awarded value | Primary ranking signal for rivals and share calculations |
| Award count | Proxy for market depth (many small awards vs few large awards) |
| Share % | Concentration measurement; feeds the top-1 / top-3 concentration flag |
| Date range coverage | Assesses recency and whether the competitive landscape has changed materially |
| Source health | Flags which portal feeds were degraded at fetch time |
Integration with Other Commands
| Direction | Command | Integration |
|---|---|---|
| Input | /arckit:requirements |
CPV codes and capability keywords derived from DR/FR/INT |
| Input | /arckit:tenders |
TNDR artefact narrows the capability scope and provides market benchmarks |
| Output | /arckit:research |
Feed the competitive set into build-vs-buy analysis and TCO comparison |
| Output | /arckit:score |
Rival award history used as comparative Company Experience evidence |
| Output | /arckit:risk |
Concentration / single-supplier-dependency risk |
| Output | /arckit:adr |
Competitive landscape and route-to-market decisions recorded as ADRs |
Follow-on Actions
- Feed the competitive set into build-vs-buy analysis (
/arckit:research) - Use rival award history as Company Experience evidence in a vendor scorecard (
/arckit:score) - Register supplier-concentration or single-supplier-dependency risks (
/arckit:risk) - Record route-to-market decisions as ADRs (
/arckit:adr) - Escalate
HIGHconcentration findings to commercial lead before procurement scoping