04-market-analysis

name	04-market-analysis
description	Use when producing or reviewing the 04 market analysis component of a business plan; applies its specialist evidence, decisions, and acceptance tests instead of neighbouring pipeline skills.
metadata	{"portable":true,"compatible_with":["claude-code","codex"]}

Market Analysis Skill

Use When

• Use when proving that the opportunity sits inside a real, financeable market.
• Use when building or reviewing TAM, SAM, SOM, industry trends, or regulatory context.
• Use when revenue assumptions need external market grounding.

Do Not Use When

• Do not use as a substitute for target-customer or competitor analysis.
• Do not use to justify numbers with unsourced optimism.
• Do not use top-down market size alone when a bottom-up view is needed for credibility.

Required Inputs

• Business model, product or service type, and geography
• Customer segments and revenue logic
• Available market data, industry reports, regulatory context, and country assumptions
• Any financial assumptions that depend on market size, growth, or demand dynamics

Workflow

1. Define the market question the section must prove.
2. Build the industry overview, growth logic, and regulatory frame.
3. Size TAM, SAM, and SOM using both top-down and bottom-up logic where possible.
4. Identify the key demand drivers, barriers, and industry structure.
5. Reconcile the market section with pricing, volume, and growth assumptions in the financial model.
6. Flag weak evidence, estimated figures, and further validation needs.

Quality Bar

• Market size and growth claims are sourced or transparently estimated.
• The section proves relevance for this business, not just industry size.
• Market logic supports the revenue ramp in the financial model.
• The reader can see why this market is attractive and accessible now.

Anti-Patterns

• Copying generic industry summaries that do not connect to the business model.
• Using TAM as if it were the realistic revenue opportunity.
• Presenting growth rates without source quality or method clarity.
• Ignoring regulation, barriers, or demand friction.

Outputs

• Market analysis section
• TAM, SAM, SOM and growth logic
• Key market drivers, barriers, and regulatory factors
• A list of market assumptions that must align with later sections

Generate a data-driven market analysis that proves the business operates in a viable, growing market worth investing in.

Required Elements

1. Industry overview Current state, structure, dynamics, and marketing evolution stage
2. Market size TAM, SAM, SOM with dual methodology
3. Growth rate and trends Historical and projected CAGR
4. Market drivers Forces fuelling growth (technology, regulation, demographics, AI adoption)
5. Market barriers Entry barriers, switching costs, regulatory hurdles
6. Regulatory environment Laws, licences, compliance requirements
7. Industry lifecycle stage Emerging, growing, mature, or declining
8. Key industry players Major companies and estimated market share
9. Market share metrics How share is measured in this industry (Farris)
10. Data sources Citation for every claim

Market Sizing Methodology

Use both approaches and reconcile (investors flag plans using only top-down):

Bottom-up (preferred):

Number of potential customers
  x Average revenue per customer
  x Realistic conversion rate
  = SOM (Serviceable Obtainable Market)

Top-down:

Total industry revenue
  x Relevant segment percentage
  x Obtainable share percentage
  = SOM cross-check

SOM Reasonableness Rules

• Startups: SOM typically 1-5% of SAM in years 1-3
• Established businesses entering new markets: 5-15% of SAM
• If SOM exceeds 20% of SAM, provide extraordinary justification
• TAM SAM narrowing must show clear filtering criteria

Market Share Metrics (Farris)

Define how market share is measured in this industry:

Metric	Formula	Use
Unit market share	Units sold / Total units sold in market	Product businesses
Revenue market share	Revenue / Total market revenue	All businesses
Relative market share	Brand share / Largest competitor share	Competitive positioning
Market concentration	Combined share of top 3-4 players	Industry structure
Share of wallet	Spend with us / Customer's total category spend	Customer penetration

Marketing Evolution Context (Kotler 6.0)

Position the industry within Kotler's marketing evolution framework:

Era	Focus	Relevance
Marketing 1.0	Product-centric	Traditional manufacturing
Marketing 2.0	Customer-centric	Service industries
Marketing 3.0	Human-centric, values	Social enterprise, sustainability
Marketing 4.0	Digital transition	E-commerce, digital-first
Marketing 5.0	Technology for humanity	AI, IoT, big data integration
Marketing 6.0	Immersive, phygital	Metaverse, AR/VR, phygital experiences

Identify where the target industry sits and where it is heading this signals market trajectory to investors.

Generation Process

1. Ask for: industry, geography, target segment, business model
2. Research or estimate market size using both methodologies
3. Identify 3-5 key trends shaping the industry
4. Document regulatory landscape
5. Map competitive ecosystem (detailed in section 06)
6. Position industry on Kotler's evolution curve
7. Define how market share is measured in this industry
8. Cite all data sources flag estimates clearly as "estimated"

Quality Criteria

• Market size uses bottom-up methodology, not just top-down
• Both methods reconcile within 30% of each other
• Growth claims cite sources or are flagged as estimates
• TAM/SAM/SOM shows logical narrowing with clear filters
• SOM passes the reasonableness rules above
• Trends are specific to this industry, not generic macro trends
• Regulatory risks are acknowledged honestly
• Market share metrics are defined for this specific industry

Market Type Classification

Before sizing the market, classify its type this changes everything about strategy, spending, and timeline (Blank & Dorf, 2012):

Type	Definition	Revenue Curve
Existing market	Known customers, known competitors	Predictable growth via share capture
New market	No existing category	Slow adoption, 3-7 years to scale
Re-segmented	Niche or low-cost in existing market	Moderate, segment-dependent
Clone market	Proven model from another country	Depends on local adaptation

Use the cost-of-entry thresholds to assess competitive feasibility: 74%+ = monopoly (avoid head-on), 41%+ = market leader (re-segment instead), <26% = fragmented (easiest entry). See references/market-type-entry-analysis.md.

Industry Structure Analysis (Porter)

Beyond market sizing, assess the structural attractiveness of the industry using Porter's analytical frameworks:

Industry Lifecycle Stage (Porter's critique of the Product Life Cycle)

Rather than mechanically applying the standard introduction growth maturity decline model (which Porter shows is unreliable), identify the driving forces that are actively changing industry structure:

Driving Force	How to Assess It
Long-run growth rate change	Is the market growing, plateauing, or declining? What is causing it?
Changes in buyer segments	Are new buyer types entering? Are existing buyers becoming more sophisticated?
Product or process innovation	Is technology changing what buyers expect or how firms can serve them?
Entry or exit of major firms	Are new entrants or large firms reshaping the competitive landscape?
Input cost changes	Are input costs shifting in ways that favour some competitors over others?
Regulatory change	Is regulation creating or removing entry barriers?

Strategic Group Mapping

Cluster competitors into strategic groups firms following similar strategies along key dimensions (price position, quality, geographic coverage, vertical integration, brand investment). This reveals:

• Which firms are direct competitors (same strategic group) vs. indirect (different group)
• Whether any strategic position is unoccupied and whether this is an opportunity or a structural impossibility
• Which group is in the most structurally attractive position (faces weakest Five Forces)

Cross-reference: references/industry-structure-porter.md for the complete framework including strategic dimensions, mobility barriers, industry evolution driving forces, and Uganda/EA application notes.

References

• Industry structure, strategic groups, and industry evolution: See references/industry-structure-porter.md for strategic group mapping methodology, dimensions of competitive strategy, mobility barriers, industry evolution driving forces, product life cycle critique, and Uganda/EA application notes from Porter (1980)
• Market metrics and formulas: See references/market-metrics.md for comprehensive market measurement formulas, market share calculations, and industry analysis metrics from Farris
• Industry trend analysis: See references/industry-trends.md for trend identification frameworks, digital transformation indicators, and phygital marketing evolution from Kotler 6.0
• Marketing research methodology: See references/marketing-research-methodology.md for the complete marketing research process, secondary data evaluation criteria, research design selection (exploratory/descriptive/causal), sampling methods with sample size formulas, statistical analysis techniques for market analysis, and research report formatting from Hair, Ortinau & Harrison
• Market strategy frameworks: See references/market-strategy-frameworks.md for market sizing methods (6 methods including marketcrafting), HOOF demand forecasting, Porter's Five Forces with rating methodology, Value Net framework (complementors and cooperative dynamics), PESTEL environmental analysis, industry life cycle (S-curve phases), customer buying criteria (E2-P2-R2), and key success factor derivation from Evans, Harris & Lenox, and Fahey & Randall
• Market type and entry analysis: See references/market-type-entry-analysis.md for four market types (existing/new/re-segmented/clone), cost-of-entry thresholds from military OR (74%/41%/26% rules), revenue growth curves by market type, bottom-up vs. top-down estimation, Business Context Map (6-sector environmental scan), and market segmentation criteria from Blank & Dorf (2012), Cooper & Vlaskovits (2010), and Alam
• Uganda macroeconomic context (202526): See references/uganda-macro-context-2025.md for current Uganda GDP, exchange rates, inflation by category, population data, labour market statistics, poverty rates by region, household expenditure patterns, and financial access data from UBOS (CPI Feb 2026, UNHS 2023/24, NLFS 2021, KEI Q1 2025/26) and World Bank (Uganda Economic Update 2023). Read this file whenever sizing a Uganda market, citing inflation assumptions, or estimating consumer purchasing power.
• Uganda economic outlook World Bank & AfDB (2025): See references/uganda-economic-outlook-worldbank-afdb.md for comprehensive quantitative data across 10 domains: GDP growth trajectory (FY22FY27 including oil-boom FY27 projection of 9.8%), sectoral performance, interest rates and lending rates, exchange rate history, public debt, fiscal operations, export data (coffee, gold, tourism), FDI, poverty headcount (old and new IPL), agriculture productivity gaps vs. Kenya/Tanzania/Rwanda, oil pipeline (EACOP) timeline, climate shock projections, Africa-wide context from AfDB AEO 2025, and stress test reference data. Sources: World Bank UEU-21 (June 2023), World Bank UEU-26 (December 2025), AfDB AEO 2025.

July 2026 Portable Contract

Required Inputs

Input artefact	Source/provider	Required	Behaviour when absent
Market definition, customer count or spend evidence, geography, time period, and source register for 04 market analysis	Verified research, official statistics, client sales data, and named assumptions	Yes	If absent, a load-bearing market source or denominator is unavailable, provide the bounded known market and label the unmeasured remainder.
Finalised business brief, target reader, country, and stage	Client intake and engagement owner	Yes	Stop section decisions and route the missing context to client intake.
Reconciled upstream assumptions that this section consumes	Named pipeline owners	Conditional	Record the dependency, affected claim, owner, and recovery step; do not substitute an invented value.

Outputs

Artefact	Consumer	Observable acceptance condition
Market analysis with bounded size, structure, trend, and entry implications	Plan author and target decision-maker	The artefact answers the section decision and traces each material conclusion to the supplied evidence.
04 market analysis exception and handoff note	Downstream section owners	Every blocked or conditional item names its consequence, owner, evidence request, and restart condition.
04 market analysis release record	Reviewer or plan assembler	Records the checks completed, failures, unassessed items, professional review required, and release state.

Evidence Produced

Evidence	Format	Acceptance condition
Source-at-claim market model and assumption/countercase register	Source-linked table, calculation, or annotated prose	The evidence is reproducible from named inputs and distinguishes verified fact, management assumption, and inference.
04 market analysis decision record	Decision note	States the selected action, rejected credible alternative, countercase, rationale, and risk accepted or avoided.
04 market analysis review trace	Gate entry	Identifies the date, input versions, reviewer role, failed checks, recovery owner, and any check that remains not assessed.

Capability and Permission Boundaries

For 04 market analysis, the controlling focus is market boundary, source quality, bottom-up and top-down sizing, structure, trends, entry timing, and uncertainty. This skill may search and analyse market evidence in read-only mode; it may not invent a TAM, extrapolate beyond a source population, or present an undated estimate as current. Its normal mode is read-only analysis and drafting. Any mutation, external communication, spending, certification, or professional conclusion outside that boundary requires explicit authority and must remain traceable to the approving role.

Degraded Mode

For 04 market analysis, loss of evidence about market boundary, source quality, bottom-up and top-down sizing, structure, trends, entry timing, and uncertainty activates degraded mode. If the controlling 04 market analysis evidence is unavailable, the same boundary applies. When a load-bearing market source or denominator is unavailable, provide the bounded known market and label the unmeasured remainder. Return the verified subset, label the affected decision qualified or not assessed, explain the downstream consequence, and state the smallest evidence request or authorised action that permits recovery. Do not convert the missing check into a pass.

Decision Rules

Choice or condition	Action	Failure or risk avoided
For 04 market analysis, top-down market revenue conflicts with bottom-up reachable-customer economics	show both methods, diagnose the boundary difference, and use the conservative decision-relevant case	Inflated market sizing destroys strategy and valuation credibility
For 04 market analysis, A current legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, market, or platform claim controls the 04 market analysis decision	Verify the controlling source, effective date, jurisdiction, and reviewer status before release	Stale external facts become permanent plan assumptions
For 04 market analysis, The evidence reconciles with neighbouring sections and the countercase does not overturn the choice	Complete market analysis with bounded size, structure, trend, and entry implications, attach the evidence and release record, and hand off named dependencies	Premature release and repeated downstream rework

Workflow

1. Define the exact 04 market analysis decision, intended reader, jurisdiction, business stage, and permission boundary.
2. Collect market definition, customer count or spend evidence, geography, time period, and source register and map each material conclusion to its source; stop the affected conclusion when an input could change it.
3. Apply the specialist methods and directly linked references already contained in this skill, retaining its domain thresholds, calculations, and Uganda or East Africa context where applicable.
4. Compare the credible alternatives, test the countercase and failure path, and apply the decision table rather than selecting a template default.
5. Produce market analysis with bounded size, structure, trend, and entry implications with the evidence, exception, and handoff records; reconcile every shared assumption with its owning section.
6. Run the section quality checks, applicable finance or professional review, and anti-slop gate. If a gate fails, correct the evidence or decision and return to the responsible step.

Quality Standards

• Market analysis with bounded size, structure, trend, and entry implications must answer a real decision for the named bank, investor, DFI, grant, board, or strategic-partner reader.
• Source-at-claim market model and assumption/countercase register must be source-linked, dated where facts can change, and sufficient for another reviewer to reproduce the conclusion.
• The section exposes its countercase, stop condition, recovery action, and effect on neighbouring sections.
• No unavailable source, calculation, tool, or professional review is reported as passed; finance and statutory judgements follow the governing doctrine.
• Language remains specific to 04 market analysis, uses British English naturally, and passes the repository anti-slop gate without promotional filler.

Anti-Patterns

• In 04 market analysis, treating an unavailable market definition, customer count or spend evidence, geography, time period, and source register as confirmed. Correction: qualify the affected conclusion and issue the named evidence request.
• Producing market analysis with bounded size, structure, trend, and entry implications that restates the brief but makes no choice. Correction: record the choice, rejected alternative, rationale, countercase, and implication.
• Ignoring a conflicting upstream assumption. Correction: return it to its owning section and resume only from a reconciled version.
• Reporting an unavailable check as passed. Correction: mark it not assessed and narrow the release state.
• Claiming compliance, assurance, bankability, or investor readiness from narrative quality. Correction: run the applicable gate and retain its evidence.
• Copying the worked example into a client plan. Correction: use the method only and replace every fact with verified engagement evidence.

Worked Example

A report covers all East African logistics while the venture serves Kampala cold-chain pharmacies. Reject regional revenue as SOM evidence and size the reachable segment from verified pharmacy counts.

References

• Use the verified project evidence register and the owning upstream pipeline section for 04 market analysis; no local deep-dive reference is declared.
• For 04 market analysis claims involving money, tax, grants, reserves, revenue, cost, valuation, or financial statements, apply the Chwezi finance doctrine and record the required professional-review state; illustrative figures never become client facts.