"The first important function of a competitive analysis is for a product manager to understand their company's position. That includes assessing how the products they are responsible for contribute to the company's mission and goals. It may also include performing a SWOT analysis to identify strengths that can be maximized, weaknesses to reduce, opportunities to capitalize on, and threats to mitigate.
Once a product manager has the appropriate context, they can identify their top competitors and future competitors. A feature-by-feature comparison is a helpful next step to establishing the relative value of each product and determining where gaps exist. This may include using demo versions of competitor products or posing as a customer to test how they perform in customer service scenarios.
Additionally, sometimes I can gather information on how much each company invested in their products, what current projects they are working on, and what kind of staff they employ. This information usually comes through direct conversations with peers and others in my network. I find this information helpful specifically when trying to mitigate threats or beat the competition to the market."
