A multi-step method stays encoded between runs and verified at every step, so the process holds rather than being rebuilt in each new prompt.
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The intelligence function six business areas never had to staff
Client
Date
$30B+ global electrification and automation group
08/2026
The challenge
A $30B+ global electrification and automation group runs innovation as a federation: six business areas, each with a leader who needs to know what competitors, startups and markets are doing, and none with a team whose full-time job is finding out. A weekly competitive scan cost one to two analyst-days. A startup deep dive cost three to five.
The solution
FifthRow deployed a managed intelligence function across six business areas. Each segment leader's own method goes in as an encoded multi-step system; scheduled briefs, market sizings and diligence packs come out, with verification between every step and a FifthRow operator layer that builds and tunes the systems so the client never had to staff a team to run them.
596,505
analyst-hours equivalent, 150 FTEs854,575
sources fact-checked behind the workStanding, unattended intelligence21 systems, fixed cadence, eight stakeholders
Research volume6,653 runs, 845,724 sources
Encoded systems54 in production, verified between steps
Analyst-hours equivalent596,505 hours, 150 FTEs
Five named competitors and a set of priority technology domains are tracked continuously, on a schedule nobody has to remember. Each run compares the current window against the last, so what lands is what changed.
Core Activities
- Put five named competitors under weekly activity tracking
- Covered market areas by the same method, a segment tracked like a rival
- Added innovation signal tracking across priority technology domains, continuous rather than on request
- Layered like-for-like scans of component categories against competitor equivalents
- Extended into alliance tracking: three years of a competitor's partnerships in one run
The Results
A weekly, unattended picture of what five competitors and a set of priority technology domains are doing, delivered to the sponsors who own those relationships without anyone commissioning it.
371
competitor and domain updates, unattendedTwo of the group's fastest-moving segments each got a purpose-built weekly brief encoding the segment leader's own research method rather than a generic market report.
Core Activities
- Encoded a segment leader's hand-run scan of geographies, regulations and technology signals as a weekly system
- Iterated against his own spec, adding a structural lens and impact baseline: each week reads as what changed
- Adapted it for a second segment leader, then rebuilt around six lenses and a two-year baseline
- Co-authored the taxonomy, baking in his own customer and account lists
- Sized each brief as a short executive read, full source-backed detail underneath
The Results
Two segment leaders receive a weekly, source-traceable brief built on their own method and their own taxonomy, refreshed whether or not they have time that week.
~1,110
analyst-hours equivalent per briefThe group's priority growth market got its own stack: competitive tracking for a product line it is new in, channel partner mapping, and a weekly strategy digest with private-equity and acquisition watches alongside it.
Core Activities
- Read competitor signals against the team's own go-to-market document, so each brief lands a "what this means for us" section, not a news summary
- Mapped channel partners by role, specialisation, geography and contact, surfacing integrators and distributors the team had missed
- Shipped a weekly market intelligence brief every Monday: peers, new entrants, private-equity activity
- Added on-demand private-equity monitoring and acquisition-target screening
- Set the model so executives consume and analysts operate: briefs arrive whoever is at the desk
The Results
The team entering the group's priority market runs on a weekly competitive brief, a live partner map and a standing view of who is buying whom, without adding headcount to produce any of it.
~690
analyst-hours equivalent per runThe group's annual market-sizing exercise is the most strategically visible number it produces, used across acquisitions, antitrust and planning. FifthRow built an independent second-opinion model to triangulate against it.
Core Activities
- Answered the market-size question in two independent passes: components first, then each sized with competitor share
- Scored markets on digitalisation, risk, capital and climate across seven comparisons in one pass
- Decomposed the top-down number by product and segment, as the planning template expects
- Added component-level sizing where the number itself was the decision
- Built the output to land inside the planning process, not a standalone file
The Results
An independent, source-traceable second opinion on market size by country and product line, produced on demand and structured to drop into the planning template the group already uses.
~3,330
analyst-hours equivalent per passThe ventures team needed two things: to stop missing what was happening in four specific technology niches, and to stop spending a week per startup on diligence.
Core Activities
- Built startup diligence the ventures team runs itself, in one session, into their template library
- Put four technology niches under a bi-weekly watch, 25 agents per cycle, each ranked on strategic fit, engagement potential and internal value
- Ran standing technology-readiness and market-pain assessments, sizing how close a technology is to commercial use
- Added whitespace analysis and horizon scanning against the group's asset base
- Mapped acquisition targets across the group's priority product categories
The Results
A repeatable diligence pack on any candidate to the same standard every time, and a standing watch on four technology niches that nobody has to remember to run.
3–5 analyst-days
of consultant work per diligence candidateWhat it proved
In the first year the group ran 208 studies against 8,851 sources, every one started by a person. In the twelve months since: 6,653 studies against 845,724 sources, 438 of them on a schedule. Fifty-four systems run in production, from catalogue templates to a diligence engine and a multiplier model built for this account. Across 6,861 runs and 9,941 verified agent steps the platform records 596,505 analyst-hours saved, the equivalent of 150 full-time analysts, and volume is still climbing.
The group now holds the intelligence function it never staffed: six business areas whose leaders each did their own scanning now have a weekly brief, market model or diligence system encoded against their own method, running unattended. It spread by word of mouth, to 21 active users across 11 country organisations. The sponsor now scores eleven use cases on time saved, external spend avoided and strategic impact: the question has moved from whether the function works to how much to fund.
Results
| Metric | Benchmark | Result | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly segment scanning | 1–2 analyst-days each, by hand | scheduled briefs, 21 standing systems | No analyst-days consumed |
| Startup diligence | 3–5 analyst-days per candidate | one system run end to end | Days returned per candidate |
| Commissioned market scans | six a year, ~3 analyst-days each | run on demand | 18 analyst-days back, fee avoided |
| Analyst-hours saved | commissioned per question, or skipped | 596,505 hours, 6,861 runs | Equivalent of adding 150 full-time analysts |
Sponsors receive their briefs without ever operating the system, so the outputs keep arriving through holidays, handovers and changes of role.
A brief running in one country organisation gets asked for by the next, so coverage spreads across a federation without a central mandate.
Briefs fire to a fixed slot whether or not anyone has time, so coverage no longer depends on a busy leader remembering to start it.
Segment leaders set their own taxonomies, company lists and delivery slots, so each brief carries what a subscription report structurally cannot.
The first system in a domain carries the build cost, and each further segment configures that same architecture rather than starting a new build.
Cutting a four-month research cycle to six weeks across five validation workstreams
Client
$25B+ US energy & home-services company
Date
08/2026
6 days
intake brief to ranked reportFrom a weekly newsletter to a self-running innovation radar
Client
$70B+ global energy utility
Date
08/2026
284,680
analyst-hours equivalent, 71 FTEsFor Enterprises
ProofSee all
From a standing start to an AI venture serving small businesses
From 72 patents to 4 commercialisation-ready technologies
Cutting a four-month research cycle to six weeks across five validation workstreams
From a weekly newsletter to a self-running innovation radar
A full year's validated-concept target, met in the first quarter
A utility innovation lab that answers its own questions in a day
Finding the next high-growth US metro in five days
FifthRow – The Agentic Consultancy
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