Sensitive material is analysed in a workspace walled off from the rest of the group, so governance limits stop deciding which questions can be asked.
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Ten full-time analysts' worth of research, without a research department
Client
Date
€4B+ European broadcasting and media group
08/2026
The challenge
A €4B+ European broadcasting and media group runs its businesses as separate operating companies. The strategy questions that mattered crossed all of them, and there was no shared research function to answer any of them. Each question was scoped from scratch, commissioned from an agency, or never asked.
The solution
FifthRow deployed a self-serve research layer across the group's operating businesses, and a second, deliberately isolated workspace for internal audit. Whichever team holds the question describes it in plain language; a multi-step, source-traceable research system comes out and stays in that team's own catalogue to be rerun.
18,398
analyst-hours equivalent, 10 FTEs96
research systems built in-houseResearch systems available96, built and run in-house
Verification behind a finding5,092 questions checked against source
Functions running research7, strategy through internal audit
Confidential audit materialSeparate workspace, unreachable by others
Analyst-hours equivalent18,398 hours saved; equivalent to 10 FTEs
The single largest workstream. One strategy lead set out to map where the group's separate operating businesses actually reinforced each other, rather than where the org chart said they should.
Core Activities
- Built a four-part chained analysis – core offerings, adjacent offerings, market and competitor trends, then synergies – rerun as the picture sharpened
- Extended the same structure across five group businesses
- Designed cooperation models on the synergy findings – an operating relationship, not a list of overlaps
- Market-entry analysis for one business, revenue and product ideation for another
- Added startup scouting and cooperation ideation, screening companies against the portfolio for fit
The Results
A structured, source-backed synergy map across five group businesses, produced continuously by one person, and the cooperation models that follow from it. The work that would previously have been a commissioned consulting project ran as an internal capability.
12,313
analyst-hours equivalent, ~7 FTEsA broadcaster's strategic position is set by what its peers, its platform partners and its largest advertisers are doing. A second workstream, run from the group holding company, kept that picture current.
Core Activities
- Built a hypothesis test against a peer broadcaster abroad, then generalised it so any two markets swap in as inputs
- Ran a direct advertising-load comparison, plus content-delivery analysis across distribution platforms in both markets
- Assessed which domestic players a global platform would likely partner with, and what that means
- Analysed a large advertiser's media strategy, as both media buyer and competing media owner
- Ran sponsorship partner identification ahead of a major event, plus the marketing decision-makers to approach
The Results
A refreshable read on peer broadcasters, platform partners and advertiser behaviour, reusable across markets because the market itself is an input rather than something hard-coded into the analysis.
17
research streams run without an agencyCommissioning decisions are expensive and made on judgement. Two content teams built systems that put evidence underneath them.
Core Activities
- Built a four-part programme on a format under consideration: what it is, how to think about it, who produces it, whether and how to enter
- Built concept analysis for series, films and shows, plus pitch analysis against the market
- Surveyed AI tools for evaluating incoming material, and for trend detection across industry and audiences
- Identified tools for content development
- Ran e-commerce and digital advertising trend analysis
The Results
Commissioning and format decisions supported by a documented market read rather than a view, and a reusable assessment system for the next pitch or format that arrives.
3
content types assessed on one standardThe deepest single adoption on the account came from an unexpected place: group internal audit. It got its own isolated workspace so that confidential material could be uploaded without anyone else in the group being able to query it.
Core Activities
- Stood up a separate workspace at the auditor's request, uploads unreachable by other users
- Loaded the policy corpus, including local-language-only documents, and built a query system returning whether a policy exists and the exact governing section
- Built third-party background checks – company history, issues, litigation – rebuilt on strict legal-entity matching against official registries and court records after the first version returned similarly named companies
- Standing research on new audit standards and risk-management developments
- Built business-process risk identification and audit-programme planning from the group's own entity structure
The Results
Policy questions answered against the group's own corpus with the clause cited, and third-party due diligence produced to a defined standard by a single person, in a workspace built for confidential material.
1,855
analyst-hours equivalent, all run by one auditorAn eight-agent radar set to run on a fixed schedule and produce one synthesised executive brief, wired to the domains a year of project work had already surfaced.
Core Activities
- Composed eight parallel agents into one radar: regulatory horizon, academic research, patents, technology innovation, startups, funding, partnerships, and an executive summary synthesising the other seven
- Set it to a fortnightly Monday schedule, arriving unrequested
- Wired it to domains the strategy function had already identified, so the radar inherited a year of scoping rather than starting cold
- Designed coverage to continue in the gaps between projects, unprompted
The Results
A single synthesised brief, source-backed across regulation, research, patents, funding and partnerships, arriving on a fortnightly schedule without anyone requesting it.
1
brief replacing eight separate scansWhat it proved
Over the year, seven functions across three group companies built and ran 96 research systems, from portfolio strategy to sponsorship research to an isolated audit workspace, on 62 verified sources per run. Ten people ran their own analyses, one strategy lead carrying the largest workstream.
Across 159 runs the platform records 18,398 analyst-hours saved, the equivalent of 10 full-time analysts over the period. A self-serve layer generalised across genuinely different jobs: a synergy map, a cross-border advertising benchmark, a format market-entry read, a sponsorship prospect list and a policy lookup, all on one platform built by the people who needed them. Last came the standing layer: an eight-agent radar synthesising regulation, research, patents, funding and partnership signals into one fortnightly brief, pointed at the domains the year's work had identified.
Results
| Metric | Benchmark | Result | Improvement |
|---|---|---|---|
| Research systems available | None. Scoped or commissioned each time | 96 distinct systems built and run | Zero to a per-team catalogue |
| Functions running their own research | Central commissioning or an outside agency | 7 functions across 3 group companies | Research moved to the teams asking |
| Group policy lookup | Dozens of documents, two languages | Queried, governing clause returned | Reading replaced by retrieval |
| Verification behind a finding | Analyst judgement, per commissioned study | 5,092 questions checked against source | Auditable by default |
| Analyst-hours saved | Desk research and agency work | 18,398 hours across 159 runs | Equivalent of adding 10 full-time analysts |
A due-diligence check is held to legal-entity matching and official registries, and states when information does not exist rather than inferring it.
The market is an input rather than a fixed assumption, so one cross-border hypothesis test can be pointed at any pair of markets.
Synergy findings carry through into a proposed working relationship, so the analysis ends in a model two businesses can act on rather than a list of overlaps.
Regulation, research, patents, funding and partnership signals are composed into a single executive brief rather than separate scans somebody has to read.
An entire investment team building its own research agents in one day
Client
Corporate venture arm of a $10B+ global electronics manufacturer
Date
08/2026
11,805
analyst-hours equivalent, 8 FTEsEleven people, twenty-nine market studies, one platform
Client
$2B+ US payments and fleet services group
Date
04/2025
29
distinct market studies deliveredFor 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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