Opportunity Discovery

When you may need this service

• You want to grow, but have not yet defined the product, service or market to pursue.
• Your business has a longer-term ambition and needs to identify opportunities that could support that ambition.
• Competitors are changing their offers, and you want to understand whether a different approach could create value for your business.
• Customer needs or market conditions are changing, but the implications for your business are not yet clear.
• Your business has expertise, relationships or spare capacity that could serve a new purpose.
• Your team has several ideas and needs a clearer basis for choosing which ideas to investigate.

What we explore

The scope reflects your business objectives and the areas you are open to considering. Opportunity Discovery can explore:

• Customer needs: Problems that customers struggle to solve and needs that existing products or services do not adequately meet.
• Competitor activity: Changes in competitors’ offers, priorities or ways of serving customers. The question is whether the business could respond with an offer that customers would value, rather than simply follow a competitor.
• Market and technology changes: Developments that could change demand, customer expectations or the practical ways a business can operate. We consider how those developments might translate into an opportunity relevant to your business.
• Existing strengths and future capabilities: Ways the business’s expertise, assets or relationships could support a new offer, and capabilities that may open further business choices.
• Initial fit and uncertainty: Whether a possible opportunity aligns with the business’s objectives and resources, what evidence supports the opportunity and what still needs investigation.

An apparent gap in the market is a reason to investigate, not evidence that customers will buy. Existing offers may leave a gap because demand is limited or because serving the market is difficult.

How the service helps your business

Discovery identifies possibilities and priorities. Discovery alone does not establish customer demand or demonstrate that a business will be financially viable.

How Marketways turns a possibility into a question worth testing

We begin with the change that created the possibility and the value the client hopes to create. We then examine who would value it, why the client could be well placed to act and which assumption would invalidate the idea. Research, behavioural evidence and market analysis are used to compare possibilities rather than decorate the first one. The analysis gives management a defined opportunity, the evidence still required and a clear next decision.

Methods and technologies that support this service

Marketways selects, combines and adapts the method mix to the business question, the available evidence and the decision the work must support.

Getting ready for opportunity discovery

Bring the possibility, capability or market change that has attracted attention, together with what the business hopes it could achieve. Marketways will define the opportunity, the decision it must support, the boundaries of the search and the evidence needed to decide whether it deserves further investment.

Where this service fits

Opportunity Discovery sits within our Business Opportunities services, which help businesses identify and evaluate new sources of value. Discovery gives possible opportunities a clearer form before more detailed assessment begins.

• When you need to assess customer demand: If you already know the product or service you want to offer, Market Research & Demand Assessment can examine the relevant buyers, likely demand and market conditions. Opportunity Discovery can help define the offer when the business idea is still taking shape. If the offer is already defined, demand assessment may be a more useful starting point.
• When you need to assess the business and investment: A Business Feasibility Study can examine whether the proposed business could operate successfully and whether the investment is worthwhile. Opportunity Discovery helps define the business idea and the assumptions that need testing. If the business idea is already specific enough to assess, the feasibility study can begin without a separate discovery engagement.
• Where AI creates new possibilities: AI may make a new service practical, help a business serve additional customer groups or change the cost of providing an existing offer. For example, a business could explore whether AI-assisted support would make serving customers in additional languages practical. Opportunity Discovery examines the possible business value alongside customer needs, competitor activity and the business’s capabilities. A promising AI application still needs evidence of demand and a workable business case. When the proposed opportunity depends on AI performance, further assessment must establish whether the AI system can meet the required standard in the intended use.

Not every opportunity needs the same next step. The appropriate follow-up depends on the available evidence and the uncertainty that could change the business’s decision.

Related AI pathway

When AI may create a new product, service or operating possibility, AI Opportunity Assessment applies this discovery work to the AI context and helps turn general interest into explicit opportunities.