One of the first steps I take in the discovery process of a new project is to get a better feel for what the competition is doing. Why would we care what the compassion is already doing for the same feature or app? Oh there are so many good reasons.

Why do a competitive analysis?

• So you know how the major competition in your software, product or digital space is handling a similar feature
• Understand where your product stands in reference to its competition
• Idea generation on how to solve various usability issues
• Get an idea of what you can do to gain a competitive edge or make your product better
• No need to reinvent the wheel. Understand what already exists you you don’t have to start anew.
• To know what the trends are in your industry and on the web
• Identify best practices or patterns. Then you can make improvements on what exists.
• Seeing what already exists can spark new, and even better ideas.

They key benefit of performing a competitve analysis is to identify strengths and areas for improvement. You have to see what already exists out there before you can do this for your own product.