124 studies run by the fourteen people who needed them

Client

Date

$5B+ global materials science company

09/2026

The challenge

A $5B+ global materials science company runs front-end innovation inside its global research and development function. The questions that decide what to develop next – what the science says, what a market will pay for, what is coming – arrive from scientists, commercial leads and marketers across three regions. Each one meant somebody doing the desk research by hand.

The solution

FifthRow deployed a shared catalogue of research systems that the company's own people ran. A question goes in as plain language; a multi-step, source-traced study comes out, in the same shape whether the person asking is a polymer scientist, a country commercial lead or a strategist.

14,725

analyst-hours equivalent, 23 FTEs

14 people

in three regions running their own research

Research coverage124 distinct studies, almost none repeated

Reach14 people running research in 3 regions

Recurring theme trackingOne digest method, rerun on any topic

Evidence base5,236 research questions answered from sources

Analyst-hours equivalent14,725 hours saved; equivalent to 23 FTEs

01 — TECHNOLOGY & IP SCOUTING

A materials business decides what to develop next from what the science and the patent record already say. Scouting work put that reading in the hands of the scientists themselves rather than in a queue.

Core Activities

Mapped the patent and academic position around a technology, with the lineage between filings
Identified who else is working in a space, from established players to early-stage companies
Compiled supplier and producer landscapes for specific input chemistries
Profiled emerging companies against what they have built, raised and shipped
Returned each scan in the same structure, so one technology can be set beside another

The Results

A structured read of the technical and intellectual property position around a material or a process, produced by the scientist who needed it, in a shape a development decision can be argued from.

1,682

analyst-hours equivalent, technology and IP scouting

02 — MARKET SIZING & CATEGORY ANALYSIS

Knowing a material works is not the same as knowing it will sell. The largest body of work on the account sized end markets, mapped value chains and tested where demand actually sits.

Core Activities

Sized addressable markets for specific applications, with the growth assumptions attached
Traced value chains from raw input to end use, and where margin sits along them
Analysed end-market demand in individual growth markets, market by market
Benchmarked competitive pricing and cost position in a category
Surfaced the pain points and unmet needs behind a category rather than its headline growth rate

The Results

A sized, sourced view of an application or a market, available to the commercial lead who owns it, which is what turns a technical possibility into a business case somebody can take to a review.

8,157

analyst-hours equivalent, market and category analysis

03 — COMPETITOR & SIGNAL TRACKING

Some questions come back every quarter. A digest covering what the market launches, partners on and patents was set up once, rebuilt on the team's own feedback, and then rerun by different people on their own topics.

Core Activities

Tracked product launches, partnerships and new filings across a chosen theme
Layered scientific and technical news into the same digest rather than reading it separately
Read competitors' own published reporting for what changed in a specific product line
Scanned public vendor announcements around industry events, before and after
Rebuilt the digest on the team's feedback, then handed it back for any topic

The Results

A repeatable read on what the market is doing in a chosen area, produced to the same standard each time, so tracking a new theme costs a run rather than a project.

348

source-verified research questions answered

04 — FORESIGHT & SCENARIO PLANNING

Longer-range questions are the ones that normally wait for a session in the diary. Horizon scanning and scenario work moved onto the platform instead, where a strategist could run them the day the question arose.

Core Activities

Scanned social, technological, economic, environmental and political conditions for a domain
Synthesised the signals into the uncertainties that actually move the outcome
Built those uncertainties into scenarios rather than into a list of trends
Forecast industry trends and external factors over a stated horizon
Ran competitive wargaming against the scenarios that mattered most

The Results

A scenario set and a foresight memo produced on demand rather than on a calendar, which means a long-range view is available at the moment a decision needs one instead of at the next planning cycle.

1,217

analyst-hours equivalent, foresight and scenario work

05 — IDEA & CONCEPT EVALUATION

Ideas arrive at a front-end innovation team faster than they can be assessed. First-pass evaluation gave each one a consistent hearing before anyone committed development time to it.

Core Activities

Mapped the jobs to be done behind an idea and the customers who have them
Tested feasibility and the risks that would stop a product in development
Sized the opportunity behind an idea before it acquired a champion
Looked across other industries for solutions to the same underlying problem
Held the same evaluation shape for every idea, so two can be compared

The Results

A consistent first-pass assessment on any idea, produced fast enough that it happens before commitment rather than after, and in a format the next reviewer already recognises.

1,229

source-verified research questions answered

What it proved

Fourteen people in three regions ran 124 distinct studies between them, almost none of them repeated: technology and intellectual property scouting for the laboratories, market sizing and category analysis for the commercial teams, competitor and theme tracking, horizon scanning and scenario work, and first-pass evaluation of new ideas. Across the engagement that is 281 runs and 772 analysis steps, 19,525 sources and 5,236 research questions answered from them.

What the company was left holding is research capacity attached to the person with the question rather than to a single team. A scientist chasing a chemistry, a country commercial lead sizing an adjacent market and a strategist building scenarios all worked from the same catalogue and got answers back in the same shape, which is what lets work done in one region be read by another without translation. Four of the systems in that catalogue were built by the company's own people. Across those 281 runs the platform records 14,725 analyst-hours saved, the equivalent of 23 full-time analysts, against the fourteen people who ran them.

Results

Metric	Benchmark	Result	Improvement
Research coverage	Manual desk research, one question at a time	124 distinct studies, almost none repeated	Coverage no longer set by reading capacity
Technology and IP scouting	Patent and literature searching by hand	Scouting run by the scientists themselves	Technical reading moves at the pace of the question
Recurring theme tracking	No recurring digest on the team's own themes	One digest method, rerun on any topic	Themes tracked to one standard
Foresight and scenario work	Facilitated sessions, scheduled in advance	Scenarios and foresight memos produced on demand	Long-range view available when a decision needs it
Analyst-hours saved	Manual desk research across the team	14,725 hours across 281 runs	Equivalent of adding 23 full-time analysts

QUESTION-OWNER RESEARCH

The person holding the question runs the study, so a research need never waits behind somebody else's priorities.

SHARED METHOD LIBRARY

Colleagues in different functions work from one catalogue, so their output arrives in the same shape and can be read across teams.

CROSS-REGIONAL COVERAGE

Teams research their own markets directly, so a local question gets local evidence rather than a headquarters approximation.

TECHNICAL AND COMMERCIAL IN ONE PLACE

Patent, literature and supplier work sits beside market sizing, so a scientist and a commercial lead draw on the same evidence base.

REPEATABLE DIGESTS

A theme digest is set up once and rerun for any topic, so watching a new area costs a run rather than a project.

SELF-BUILT SYSTEMS

The company's own people add new systems to the catalogue, so fresh coverage does not wait on outside build effort.

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