Industry Analysis
How an industry really works: structure, profit pools, and the forces redrawing both.
Industries are systems with measurable structure, and structure, more than effort, determines who earns economic profit. We map that structure quantitatively: concentration, entry barriers, bargaining power, and where the profit pool sits along the value chain, then assess how technology, regulation, and capital flows are moving it.
Who this is for
Strategy teams, founders, and investors who need to understand a sector before betting on it.
How the work is done
Scope and assemble evidence
Define the industry boundary honestly (substitutes included), then assemble filings, trade data, pricing series, and expert input into a documented evidence base with source grading.
Quantify the structure
The structure–conduct–performance lens made concrete: concentration ratios and HHI, entry-barrier economics (minimum efficient scale, switching costs, regulatory moats), and buyer/supplier power assessed from actual margin and pass-through behavior.
Map the profit pool
Revenue and margin distributed across the value chain to show where money is made versus where activity happens, the two are routinely different, and the difference is where strategy lives.
Assess the dynamics
Experience curves, technology S-curves, capacity cycles, and regulatory trajectories, synthesized into 2–3 structural scenarios with signposts, how the profit pool is likely to move, and what would tell us early.
How the Industry Analysis engagement runs
We begin with the decision, use the evidence that can genuinely change it, and make the reasoning reviewable from first input to final handover.
What we need to begin
- The industry boundary the client has in mind, and which substitutes they would include or exclude.
- Named participants at each layer of the value chain, including suppliers and channel.
- Public filings, trade association data, and any purchased research already in hand.
- Pricing series and volume data wherever they exist, since structure arguments need numbers.
If an input is unavailable, we state the gap, its effect on confidence, and the agreed workaround. It is never quietly ignored.
Your four-phase engagement map
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Phase 1
Scope and assemble evidence
Define the industry boundary honestly (substitutes included) and assemble filings, trade data, pricing series, and expert input with source grading.
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Phase 2
Quantify the structure
Make structure-conduct-performance concrete: concentration ratios and HHI, entry-barrier economics, and buyer and supplier power from actual margin behavior.
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Phase 3
Map the profit pool
Distribute revenue and margin across the value chain to show where money is made versus where activity happens.
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Phase 4
Assess the dynamics
Synthesize experience curves, S-curves, capacity cycles, and regulatory trajectories into two or three structural scenarios with signposts.
Methods and models we draw on
- Structure–conduct–performance analysis
- Concentration metrics (CR4, HHI)
- Entry-barrier economics
- Profit-pool mapping
- Experience curves
- Technology S-curves
- Scenario construction with signposts
Methods are chosen for the problem, not the brochure, expect a subset of these, applied properly, plus whatever the evidence demands.
The decision this enables
You know where profit is earned in the system, why, and how that is changing, before capital is committed.