Charting your industry’s landscape (so you’re not just doing tasks)

Doing your job well is good.

Understanding the game you’re playing is better.

In your first 90 days, you’re trying to move from:

• “new person completing tasks”

to

• “teammate who understands how the business works”

That shift doesn’t come from having strong opinions.

It comes from building a simple map of the industry so you can connect your tasks to outcomes.

Scene

A common early-career feeling is: “I can do the tasks… but I don’t see the board yet.”

You’re in meetings where people casually reference:

• competitors you’ve never heard of
• metrics no one defined
• why a tiny change matters “because of regulation” or “because of pricing pressure”

You nod.

You do the work.

But you’re missing the context that makes you faster and more confident.

That’s normal.

And it’s fixable with a lightweight industry map.

Promise

This post gives you a lightweight way to build industry context without becoming an unpaid analyst:

• a simple set of questions to ask
• a 2-week plan for conversations + sources
• a one-page industry map template

What prompted this

This topic comes up in a very specific frustrated way: “I’m doing the work, but I don’t understand why any of it matters.” The best advice threads all converge on the same move — talk to people, then map what you learn. Two good anchors: Ask a Manager’s list of actually useful questions (https://www.askamanager.org/2015/02/actually-useful-questions-to-ask-in-informational-interviews.html) and this domain knowledge thread (https://www.reddit.com/r/businessanalysis/comments/1d9rn0e/how_to_build_domain_knowledge/).

The goal (simple)

You’re not trying to become an industry analyst.

You’re trying to answer a few practical questions:

• Who is the customer and what do they actually care about?
• Where does money come from (and where does it leak)?
• Who are the real competitors and substitutes?
• What’s changing that could make today’s plan wrong?

When you can answer those, you start sounding “switched on.”

Step 1) Map the value chain (how value gets created)

Every industry has a value chain: the sequence of steps that creates value.

If you can sketch it, you can understand:

• where your company makes money
• where margins exist
• where risk lives
• who the real competitors are

Example (simple ecommerce):

Manufacturers → distributors → platforms/marketplaces → marketing → customer → returns/support

Now ask:

• Where do customers complain the most?
• Where does time get wasted?
• Where do costs spike?

Those pain points are usually where strategy gets made.

Step 2) Find the “profit pools” (where the good business is)

Not all parts of an industry are equally attractive.

Some parts are high-margin, some are a grind.

Ask in plain language:

• What do customers happily pay extra for?
• What feels like a commodity?
• Who gets squeezed in negotiations?

If you’re in a junior role, this is enough: you don’t need precise numbers, you need directional truth.

Step 3) Track trends without doomscrolling

You don’t need to read everything.

You need a light cadence that builds pattern recognition.

A simple setup:

• 1 industry newsletter (weekly)
• 1 “operator” source (blog or podcast)
• 1 monthly deep read (earnings call notes, annual report, long-form research)

If you’re in a public company or your company has public competitors, earnings calls are free education.

Step 4) Don’t ignore regulation and macro forces

Even if you’re not in legal, policy, or finance:

• privacy laws change product strategy
• tariffs change supply chains
• interest rates change budgets
• major platform changes can rewrite distribution overnight

The point isn’t to predict the world.

It’s to understand what leadership will care about.

Step 5) Ask better onboarding questions (the shortcut)

Here are questions that make you look prepared and give you usable answers.

Landscape questions

• Who are our top competitors (and who are the “quiet” threats)?
• What differentiates us in one sentence?
• What substitutes do customers use instead of us?

Customer questions

• Who is the target customer?
• What is the customer’s “job to be done”?
• What do customers complain about most?

Business model questions

• How do we make money (pricing, contracts, renewals, ads, services)?
• What are the big cost drivers?
• What metric do leaders obsess over?

Internal reality questions

• What’s the biggest risk to the plan this quarter?
• What trade-offs do we usually make (speed vs quality vs scope)?
• What does “good” look like for my role?

A two-week plan (so this doesn’t stay theoretical)

If you’re new, here’s a realistic plan that doesn’t require late nights.

Week 1: five conversations

Ask five people (15 minutes each):

• your manager
• a teammate who’s been there 1–2 years
• a cross-functional partner (sales, ops, support, finance)
• someone “close to the customer”
• someone senior enough to see strategy

Use a few of the questions above. Take notes.

Week 2: five sources

Pick five sources to skim and save:

• one industry newsletter
• your company’s website / pricing page
• a competitor’s website / pricing page
• an earnings call / annual report (if public)
• a “how this industry works” explainer

You’re building a directional map, not defending a thesis.

A one-page industry map template (copy/paste)

Use this in a doc and fill it in as you learn.

# Industry map — [Industry]

## Customers
- Primary customer:
- What they care about:
- Common pain points:

## Value chain (rough)
- Step 1:
- Step 2:
- Step 3:

## Competitors / substitutes
- Direct competitors:
- Substitutes:
- Differentiator (our one sentence):

## Trends to watch
- Trend 1:
- Trend 2:
- Trend 3:

## Regulation / macro
- Key forces:

## Metrics leaders care about
- North star metric:
- Leading indicators:
- “Red flag” metrics:

Two quick notes, depending on where you sit:

• Early-career: this is how you stop feeling like you’re doing random tasks. Context turns “busy” into “useful.”
• Manager: a new hire who understands the landscape makes better trade-offs and asks better questions. Point them to 3–5 sources and the right internal people early.

Edge cases

• Highly confidential industries: you might not be able to read much externally. Your best move is internal conversations and internal docs.
• New/fast-changing industries: your map will be wrong quickly. That’s fine — update it monthly.

Next step

Schedule two 15-minute conversations next week: one with someone close to the customer, one with someone in finance/ops. Ask the landscape questions and take notes.

If you want a weekly alignment habit to turn context into decisions, use the Manager 1:1 agenda.