Market Core · Market Opportunities · Module
Opportunity assessment
Attractiveness and fit, judged separately — because a large growing market the organisation has no right to win is not an opportunity for it.
The idea
How it works
Most opportunity documents assess attractiveness thoroughly and fit not at all, because attractiveness can be researched and fit requires an honest view of the organisation.
The most informative question is why nobody is serving the opportunity already. There is usually an answer, and it is usually a constraint the organisation will also face.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Score attractiveness and fit separately
Combining them into one number hides the case where the market is excellent and the organisation is wrong for it.
- 02
Ask why it is unserved
A genuinely open opportunity is rare. The answer is usually a barrier you will meet too.
- 03
Name what the organisation would have to become
The capability gap is the real cost of entry, and it is rarely in the business case.
- 04
Let the answer be no
An assessment process that has never rejected anything is a justification process.
One level in
The components of opportunity assessment
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
The attractiveness
Size, growth, margin and competitive intensity — whether the opportunity is worth having.
Learn
Ask why nobody is serving it. There is usually an answer, and it is usually a barrier you will meet as well.
The other modules in market opportunities
Sizing
How large the opportunity actually is, built from the bottom up and stated as what is reachable rather than what exists.
LearnGrowth and direction
Where the demand is heading and what is driving it — because a shrinking large market and a growing small one call for opposite decisions.
LearnThe shortlist
What the organisation has decided to pursue and what it has decided not to — both dated, because both will be revisited by someone who was not there.
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