Building the competitive analysis
During my training in visual communications and branding, one skill that popped up time and again was the ability to build a useful competitive analysis. This is a document that details the competition for the company whose project you are working on. To offer a product successfully on the market, you must understand that market and that includes the competition. Once you know everything that everyone else is doing, you can then begin to build strategies for understanding how to place your product or service within that market. It is an essential part of the research process and must be kept in mind throughout development.