From a ten-step manual analysis to 145 market reads in two days

Client

Date

$1B+ global testing and certification group, professional training arm

09/2026

The challenge

The professional training arm of a $1B+ global testing and certification group builds its portfolio from what new legislation will oblige people to be qualified for. One analyst carried that read: a ten-step analysis worked by hand, repeated for every subject field and every country, returning results that could not be compared across markets.

The solution

FifthRow encoded the analyst's own ten-step method as a single system. A subject field and a region go in; what the legislation requires, which roles it obliges to be qualified, a dated demand timeline, a segmented market and a sized market potential come out, in the same shape every time.

194,106

analyst-hours equivalent, 1,099 FTEs

9 of 10

steps of the analyst's own method encoded

Analyst's own method9 of its 10 steps encoded

Portfolio coverage145 field-and-region reads in two days

Cycle time per readRoughly 2.5 hours, end to end

Evidence base21,543 research questions answered from sources

Analyst-hours equivalent194,106 hours saved in one month; equivalent to 1,099 FTEs

01 — REGULATORY MAPPING

Everything downstream depends on reading the law correctly first. The system opens by mapping what is in force and what is coming in a subject field, and how the separate instruments connect to each other rather than sitting in a list.

Core Activities

Mapped what is in force and what is proposed across a subject field, region by region
Connected instruments to one another, so overlapping requirements read as one picture
Separated settled obligations from those still moving through the legislative process
Read the market movement around the regulation alongside the regulation itself
Returned the same structure for every field, so one read can be set beside another

The Results

A structured read of the regulatory position in a field and a region, with the instruments connected and their status attached, which is the evidence base the training question is answered from rather than a reading list.

28,510

analyst-hours equivalent, regulatory mapping

02 — TRAINING-NEED TRANSLATION

A regulation is not a market until someone works out who it obliges to do something. This stage converts obligations into the roles inside affected organisations that will have to be qualified, which is where training demand actually comes from.

Core Activities

Translated each obligation into what an affected organisation must actually do
Identified the roles and professions that must be qualified for it
Set out the qualification each role needs, rather than the obligation in the abstract
Held the same translation standard across every region, so requirements compare
Returned a training-needs table per field and region, not a regulatory summary

The Results

A role-level statement of what the market will have to be trained in and why, traceable back to the obligation that creates it, which is what turns a regulatory change into a portfolio question.

6 world regions

read to one obligation standard

03 — DEMAND SIZING & TIMELINE

Knowing that demand is coming is not enough to plan a portfolio against. The remaining stages date it, size it and stress it, so a subject field arrives with a number and a year attached.

Core Activities

Placed obligations on a forward timeline, so a plan carries when demand arrives
Segmented the affected market by company size and by branch
Sized how many people in a field have to be trained or certified
Derived current market volume and forward potential, with a growth rate
Tested the sizing against exogenous factors that could move it either way

The Results

A sized, dated and segmented demand picture per subject field and region, with the evidence behind each figure, which is what a portfolio and pricing discussion can be held against.

12,363

source-verified research questions answered

04 — PORTFOLIO-SCALE EXECUTION IN TWO DAYS

A good method applied to three subject fields is still a bottleneck. The whole sequence was set up to run as one launch per field and region, and the analyst put the entire portfolio through it.

Core Activities

Set the method up to run once per field-and-region combination, in parallel
Covered the whole training portfolio rather than the fields there had been time for
Ran each field across six world regions, plus global and domestic views
Returned every combination in the same output shape, so markets can be ranked
Left the method in place as a repeatable system rather than a delivered report

The Results

A complete read of the portfolio: every subject field, in every region that matters to the business, sized and dated on one method, delivered as a comparable set rather than as a handful of deep dives and a lot of gaps.

145

field-and-region demand reads in two days

What it proved

An analyst's ten-step process became one system, nine of its ten steps encoded. It ran 145 field-and-region combinations in two working days, each read taking roughly two and a half hours end to end. Across the engagement that is 1,222 runs and 3,412 analysis steps, 138,760 sources and 21,543 research questions answered from them. Alongside it, service-line and competitor reads ran for an adjacent part of the group on the same platform.

The training business came out holding a demand forecast for its whole portfolio rather than for the corner of it someone had time to study, with every field and region built the same way so product groups and countries can be ranked against each other. The method now sits as a system rather than in one analyst's head, which is what lets a regulatory change be re-read as a demand question rather than restarted as a research project. Across those 1,222 runs the platform records 194,106 analyst-hours saved, the equivalent of 1,099 full-time analysts. The figure is that large because one analyst ran the system across 145 field-and-region combinations inside two working days.

Results

Metric	Benchmark	Result	Improvement
Demand analysis method	Ten steps worked by hand per market	9 of 10 steps encoded as one system	Method runs instead of being repeated
Portfolio coverage	One field and one country at a time	145 field-and-region reads	Whole portfolio read in one pass
Comparability across markets	Results could not be set side by side	One method and one output shape everywhere	Product groups and countries ranked together
Regulatory reading	Fields tracked as capacity allowed	Every field read across six world regions	Coverage no longer set by capacity
Analyst-hours saved	One analyst carrying the portfolio manually, one field and one country at a time	194,106 hours across 1,222 runs	Equivalent of adding 1,099 full-time analysts, on a whole-portfolio read of 145 markets in two days

ENCODED METHOD

An analyst's own ten-step process runs as a single system, so the reasoning behind a portfolio decision stops living with one person.

OBLIGATION-TO-DEMAND TRANSLATION

Legislation is converted into the roles that must be qualified, so a regulatory change reads as a demand signal rather than as compliance news.

COMPARABLE MARKETS

Every field and region returns in the same shape, so product groups and countries can be ranked against one another instead of read one at a time.

DATED DEMAND

Obligations are placed on a forward timeline, so a plan carries when demand arrives and not only whether it does.

PORTFOLIO-WIDE COVERAGE

A whole portfolio is read in one pass, so a small subject field gets the same standard of analysis as a priority one.

DEFENSIBLE SIZING

Market volume and growth arrive with the evidence behind them, so a planning number can be cited rather than argued.

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