From a quarterly scan to a standing foresight function

Client

Date

Global specialty chemicals leader

08/2026

The challenge

A global specialty chemicals leader ran corporate foresight, technology scouting and policy monitoring out of its new ventures and sustainability function. Keeping up with three converging streams of change consumed the equivalent of several full-time analyst years each year, and the work was reactive, siloed across teams and reset every quarter.

The solution

FifthRow set up a standing intelligence function on its platform: a defined set of priority areas in, ranked and structured signals out, on a fixed cadence and into the surface the team already works in. It runs continuously rather than on request, and the group's own new ventures team operates it alongside FifthRow.

236,200

analyst-hours displaced in three months

20+

technology and policy areas under continuous watch

Scope of the standing watchmore than 20 technology and policy areas, monitored continuously across Europe and the US

Cadencea synthesised brief every morning, a scouting radar and a policy and market sweep every fortnight, all scheduled

Structure applied to every area watchedthree levels, from value chain to technology segment to individual entrant

Evidence base across the first three months~223,500 sources analysed

Analyst time displaced across the first three months~236,200 hours

01 — STANDING TECHNOLOGY SCOUTING

The scouting layer maps a landscape once and then keeps it current. Every fortnight it returns what has appeared since the last cycle rather than rebuilding the whole picture.

Core Activities

Maps the landscape across more than twenty priority areas in a single pass, in hours rather than over a quarter
Surfaces newly emerged technologies, new vendors, new partnerships, patents and funding events within each area on a fortnightly cycle
Structures every area at three levels, from the value chain, to the technology segments worth tracking inside it, to the individual entrants inside each segment
Distinguishes seven signal types within each area, so a funding round, a patent and a policy move are not read as the same event
Reaches sources general-purpose tools do not, including specialist regulatory databases, public-affairs filings, lobbying records and industry-body publications

The Results

The team stopped re-running a landscape study to find out what had changed. A new entrant or a new technology arrives already placed inside a segment the team tracks, with sources, partnerships and benchmarking criteria attached, so fit can be judged on arrival rather than after a follow-up commission.

20+

areas kept current without rebuilding the landscape

02 — SCHEDULED POLICY & MARKET MONITORING

Policy and market monitoring moved off the list of things somebody would get to and onto a fixed schedule, covering Europe and the US on the same cadence.

Core Activities

Runs a scheduled sweep every fortnight across the policy pipelines that bear on the group's products and customers
Picks up the upstream public-affairs and lobbying signals that precede a rule rather than waiting for the rule itself
Draws on regulatory filings, industry bodies, trade press and specialist databases in the same pass
Covers Europe and the US continuously, with targeted scouting in selected markets elsewhere where adjacent activity is high
Returns implications for the business rather than a list of links

The Results

Coverage became a specification rather than a function of who had a free afternoon. Nothing in scope waits longer than a cycle to be seen, and the signals that arrive earliest, in filings and public-affairs activity, are read at the same time as the trade press that reports them later.

2 a month

policy and market sweeps nobody has to start

03 — DAILY SIGNAL SYNTHESIS

Six concurrent scans run each night, one per top-level strategic priority, and land as a single ranked brief in the morning instead of a feed nobody had time to read.

Core Activities

Runs one scan per top-level strategic priority, so each is watched on its own terms rather than blended into a single feed
Synthesises and ranks what it finds instead of aggregating it
Delivers one brief into the team's inbox each morning in place of a daily news feed of about fifty articles
Makes the whole body of intelligence answerable through a single conversational interface
Exposes it inside the collaboration tool the team already works in, so a question is asked where the work happens

The Results

The day starts with implications rather than links. Three streams that innovation, sustainability and corporate strategy each tracked separately now converge into one ranked read, and the team spends its attention on what the signals mean rather than on finding them.

~50

daily articles replaced by one ranked brief

04 — DEEP DIVES & WHITE-SPACE EXPLORATION

When a signal is worth more than a mention, the same function takes it further, on demand, without a new brief or an external study.

Core Activities

Explores areas where incumbents are weak and new entrants are forming, and returns where the room actually is
Takes a chosen white space through to a project plan the business can staff
Runs deep dives on an individual company when the radar surfaces one worth understanding
Classifies and ranks potential partners for investment and acquisition shortlisting
Returns decision-quality outputs covering market sizing, business model, build, buy or partner path, the regulatory, intellectual property, capital and adoption risks, and a recommended next step

The Results

Exploration ends in something the business can act on rather than in a reading list. A white space that looks promising on the radar can be sized, framed as a problem statement, tested against the risks and written up as a business case on the same function that found it.

~35,500

research questions answered without an analyst

What it proved

In the first three months the group stood up one continuous function covering more than twenty technology and policy areas: a landscape kept current by a fortnightly radar that returns only what is new, scheduled fortnightly policy and market sweeps across Europe and the US, six concurrent daily scans synthesised into one ranked morning brief, and deep dives on demand. Across all platform use in that period the team analysed about 223,500 sources, had about 35,500 research questions answered and displaced an estimated 236,200 hours of analyst work.

What the group holds now is a foresight function that does not reset. Coverage is specified rather than dependent on who had time this quarter, and every area is structured the same way, from value chain down to individual entrant, so a new signal arrives already placed against segments the team already tracks. The three streams that innovation, sustainability and corporate strategy used to follow separately converge into one ranked brief each morning, and a white space that looks worth pursuing can be taken through to a project plan without commissioning anything.

Results

MetricBenchmarkResultImprovement

Analyst time spent keeping up with technology, policy and market change

Benchmark: the equivalent of several full-time analyst years every year, spread across three separate teamsResult: ~236,200 analyst-hours displaced in three months

capacity returned to assessment and action

Continuity of the intelligence work

Benchmark: reactive, siloed by team, and reset every quarterResult: one standing function on a fixed cadence, carrying its context from one cycle into the next

a quarterly restart replaced by continuous coverage

Daily reading load on the team

Benchmark: a news feed of about fifty articles a day, unranked and unsynthesisedResult: one synthesised and ranked brief each morning

reading replaced by a ranked signal

Coverage of the priority landscape

Benchmark: as far as an analyst had time to reach in the quarterResult: more than 20 areas watched continuously, each re-read every cycle

coverage specified rather than sampled

Structure behind a scouted area

Benchmark: signals collected flat, area by areaResult: three levels, from value chain to individual entrant, with sources and benchmarking criteria attached

collection turned into something assessable on arrival

LAYERED SIGNAL CLASSIFICATION

Every area is structured from value chain down to individual entrant, so a new signal arrives already placed in the segment it belongs to.

DELTA-ONLY SCOUTING

The radar returns what is new since the last cycle, so a landscape stays current without being rebuilt each time it is read.

SCHEDULED COVERAGE

Policy and market sweeps run on a fixed cadence, so what gets watched no longer depends on who had time this quarter.

RANKED MORNING SIGNAL

A synthesised brief arrives each morning in place of a raw feed, so the day starts with implications rather than with links to read.

HARD-TO-REACH SOURCES

Specialist databases, public-affairs filings, lobbying records and industry-body publications are read alongside commercial data, so weak signals surface before mainstream coverage reaches them.

WHITE SPACE TO PROJECT PLAN

A promising white space is sized, risked and written up as a project plan on the same function that surfaced it, so exploration ends in something staffable.

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