OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS Associates

Our Mission

OPPORTUNITY ANALYSIS Associates exists to enable our clients to make well-informed, confident and low-risk decisions for the successful introductions of their new products and technologies. We deliver understanding of the critical needs and requirements of the markets into which these developments fit. We provide an in depth, unbiased evaluation of potential applications and markets to guide the resourcing decisions that lead to commercial success. Our primary attention is on business-to-business opportunities.

Opportunity Analysis, in brief

Our process of Opportunity Analysis is an efficient, scientific method-based analytical approach to building understanding of market opportunity. The purpose is to ensure that there is an unmet need of sufficient value to users, that all critical issues can be resolved, and that the requirements, value and competitive factors are understood in sufficient detail to predict an opportunity’s potential for success. This understanding is best built before major expenditures are made in development or manufacturing. Our Opportunity Analysis process combines best market-facing analytical practices with a unique and scientific approach to the investigation.

Your situation

• You have a new product or a new product idea and need to verify the market need and value for it.

• You have a technology and are uncertain where to target it or how to prioritize among several possible targets.

• You need to know how much to pay for a product or a technology acquisition.

• You want to bring efficient Opportunity Analysis capability in house and would like to have one or more candidates within your organization coached through the analysis of a specific opportunity.

We can help…

• Companies exploring new or extended markets for current products

• Companies facing product line extension decisions

• Institutes or central research organizations seeking to monetize technology developments or seeking market-back guidance on opportunities with high potential

• Companies considering acquiring a new technology and needing to verify its market potential

• Businesses with products that fit one geography but need to be adapted for a new one

Opportunity Analysis Associates’ technologies are particularly tuned to the business-to-business environment.

Axioms of Opportunity Analysis

1. It is possible to go beyond the customer’s (user’s) awareness of their own need, especially when new technology is involved.

2. It is possible to determine the value to the consumer of meeting unmet needs (with a new product innovation) before the product has been developed

3. It is possible to virtually eliminate product development risk prior to development by thoroughly understanding the critical needs and requirements.

Our Opportunity Analysis process

Our approach is narrow and deep. We want to enable new business, market development and technology managers to make low risk decisions with high confidence regarding which opportunities to pursue and which to shelve. Opportunity Analysis provides the understanding to make confident resourcing decisions.

Stripping away the “nice to know”, our focus is on the critical issues that govern the opportunity, the ones that will literally make or break it.

Following the scientific method, we create hypotheses about these critical issues that, in turn, guide the research. The critical hypotheses are tested through direct engagement with experts having the greatest current knowledge of the subject matter and through financial analysis modeling. This process is efficient, specific, definitive and has a very high success rate.

When asked the question, “Where can Opportunity Analysis help us most?” our response is, “What is the highest impact product or technology decision you need to make?” The answer to this “biggest problem” question is the area where Opportunity Analysis will contribute the greatest value.

What about early-stage ideas? We have many times participated in the investigation of a potential opportunity whose supporting technology was very early in the development cycle. This “thought experiment” approach may seem to be too conjectural a first step for analyzing an opportunity. But since the investigation is done in areas that ring most true to the potential of the technology, as viewed by those closest to it, the likelihood of finding an opportunity is as high as it could be under any circumstances. Adding entrepreneurial insight to the technology and hypothesized need elements has time and again shown that true needs are found in areas explored with this tentative beginning.

We have found the adage that “Chance favors the prepared mind” is true in this kind of investigation. By looking closely at the most likely target areas, and with the benefit of “selective perception” we are able to distinguish a positive opportunity signal in a background of noise. These factors lead to success in finding a real opportunity in a cloudy market space. Unfortunately, few enterprises and fewer entrepreneurs invest the time and effort to think this way about potential product ideas, and often only get their first customer feedback after lobbing a finished product at them. Failing to achieve the understanding of requirements in the so called “fuzzy front end” of development results in a lot of money’s being spent developing products for which there is no real need and the consequent pivoting to address newly understood needs. Many good opportunities are missed, or worse, they may be exploited by others. Doing opportunity analysis early parallels, in some ways, the exploration of a technology with an unclear idea of where it will be useful. The main difference is that market investigation is a far less expensive task to conduct than technology development.

How we work with you

While our main focus is delivering the soundest possible analysis of an opportunity and predicting the outcome with a thorough understanding, we have found it helpful to assist clients in these complementary ways:

1-Selection Criteria

In the event that criteria for selecting the highest impact project are not already in place, we propose facilitating the documentation of consensus-based selection criteria with the management team. We utilize existing statements of Mission and other strategic documents already in place, involve all functions, identify key strengths to be utilized, and, as often is needed, we guide the team to develop a more robust set of prioritizing criteria.

2-Opportunity Analysis Coaching

For the Opportunity Analysis itself, we offer two approaches. Our preferred mode is to work with committed analysts (as distinguished from project champions) who are employees of the organization. We coach and guide them through an Opportunity Analysis project, teaching and helping them in their critical thinking processes and in the development of key skill sets. These skills include developing meaningful hypotheses of cause and effect, resource identification, interviewing skills, analysis structure, modeling and communication. Coached by us, they complete an analysis project and present the findings and results to the appropriate management group. By applying the models, methods and processes under our guidance in a first study, the learner gains the skills to complete subsequent analyses independently and is then in a position to coach others, leveraging their new skills. Analysts trained in this discipline have enjoyed great job satisfaction and have reported more rapid career advancement than they felt otherwise possible as a direct result of their new skillset. We have developed a checklist of personal characteristics that an effective analyst should display, in order to aid in the selection of these individuals for the task. The learning curve is steep, but the concepts are transferrable. The return on invested time and effort is greater, of course, if a trained analyst can carry on with subsequent independent analysis projects after the first one is completed.

3-Independent Opportunity Analysis

As an alternative to coaching new analysts, we are pleased to undertake independent research to complete objective analyses on a project basis. To be most effective in this mode, we work closely with the client to develop a clear understanding of the decisions they seek to make, together with all the assumptions they currently have. Some clients have opted for this approach for reasons of lack of internal resource or to ensure confidentiality or because they prefer completely autonomous analysis. It is often a door opener for subject matter experts to know for whom the analysis is being done, but we leave it to the client to determine whether or not their identity is revealed. If members of the client team want to participate in the depth interviews, we are happy to have them join the calls. In highly technical areas, their expertise is invaluable. We apply the same focus of delivering decision-worthy results whether we work independently or with an internal resource.

4-Special Mode for Institutes and Educational Organizations

The techniques embodied in Opportunity Analysis are ideally suited to execution, under attentive coaching, by a senior level student or a Master’s Degree candidate. The final report of the analyzed opportunity often matches the institution’s requirements for a thesis of independent research. For these projects, Opportunity Analysis Associates works with the student and the professor, mentoring the progress through to completion. This approach is suited either to an MBA curriculum or to a technical Masters Degree with a marketing emphasis. Clients sponsoring employees to earn the MBA have found this approach especially useful, allowing the fulfillment of scholastic requirements while obtaining opportunity insights specific to the client’s business or technology. The full analysis can be completed in the time frame of a single academic term.