For years I have been looking for a better name for the competitive review service we provide at Objective Digital. When doing this service, we generally ask the client for a list of sites they consider competitive to review.
Clients often say, "We've done that already." However, my response is, "We need to look at them to familiarise ourselves with your market and also to find and borrow any good ideas they might have." They usually let us do it.
The other day, I was listening to Stuart Edwards from Profero speaking at the AIMIA customer experience event at the Telstra Experience Labs. He was showing us how they borrowed the flexible one-page set up interface from World of Warcraft to innovate the redesign of the Pizza Hut online ordering system in Australia. This was a great example of thinking outside the box! Stuart made an important point. He said, "We don't do competitive analysis at Profero, we do Opportunity Analysis!".
The word opportunity completely changes the focus of the competitive review exercise! Instead of reviewing the other sites from an analytical frame of mind it requires a creative frame. It reminds clients and consultants that we are looking for design innovations in other websites, not just doing a standard site comparison.