Work it through: Entering a New Market
Four frameworks in the order I would actually use them: read the macro weather, judge whether the industry can pay you, name the risk you are really taking, then make a choice whose reasoning you can still defend a year later.
Seven steps, in the order the playbook gives them. Your work stays in this browser until you save it to a file.
Your ducks
Start with what the people believe, what the paperwork says and what actually happens. The issues where your ducks disagree are the ones to carry into the homework.
You have not filled in the ducks sheet yet.
The homework
What has to be found before any of the four frameworks is worth running. Put a name and a date against each one, and tick it when you have it in your hands.
The ducks
For PESTEL Analysis
For Porter's Five Forces
For Ansoff Matrix
For Decision Matrix (Weighted Scoring)
Step 1 of 4: PESTEL Analysis
Start with the forces nobody in the market controls. Before you study the competitors, study the context they all sit in: the politics, the economics, the rules, the habits of the people you hope to sell to. I think of this as reading the weather before setting off. A market can look attractive on every commercial measure and still be one regulation away from misery. The output you want is short: the two or three macro forces that could genuinely change your decision, evidenced and dated, with someone's name against each.
Watch forThe trap is a long, tidy list of observations that could never change the decision; if a force could not move the P&L, it does not belong on the page.
0 of 6 steps filled · 0 of 4 inputs in hand
What comes out, and how to read it
A prioritised register of macro-environmental forces: sourced evidence under each of the six headings, a judgement of impact, likelihood and timing for each, and a short list of the forces that should change a decision, each translated into a stated opportunity or threat with an owner.
- Read for the binding forces, not the longest column. Two well-evidenced forces that could move the P&L are worth more than thirty observations that could not.
- Read the factors together. Forces compound across categories: a legal change plus a social trend plus a technology shift often describes one underlying disruption.
- Treat every entry as an assumption with a date. The scan is a snapshot, and its value decays; the monitoring triggers are part of the output.
Step 2 of 4: Porter's Five Forces
Now narrow the lens from the climate to the industry itself. Five Forces asks the question most market-entry plans skip: even if we win share here, will anyone make decent money. Industry structure decides where the profit pool sits and who has the power to drain it. Suppliers, buyers, substitutes, new entrants, rivalry. You are looking for the one or two forces that govern profitability, and for any asymmetry a newcomer could exploit. If the strongest force would squeeze you hardest, far better to know before you commit.
Watch forNever average the five forces into a comfortable overall score; the strongest force sets the ceiling on profit, however friendly the other four look.
The reading · 0 of 5 forces rated
Rate all five forces and the reading appears here.
Step 3 of 4: Ansoff Matrix
With the outside world understood, turn the lens on yourself. Ansoff's grid does one humble, valuable thing: it names the kind of bet you are making. A new market with your existing product means learning new customers while keeping everything you know about the offer. A new market with a new product means discarding most of what you know at once. I have watched teams discuss those two as if they carried the same risk. They do not, and this grid stops the conversation pretending otherwise.
Watch forWatch for diversification dressed up as market development because somebody in the room wants the safer-sounding label.
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Step 4 of 4: Decision Matrix (Weighted Scoring)
By now you have the context, the industry structure and an honest label for the risk. The last job is choosing between the actual options on the table, this country or that one, this channel or that partner, in a way a board can inspect later. Agree the criteria before anyone scores, weight them, and let the argument happen around the table instead of in the corridor afterwards. Treat the total as the start of the argument. Its real value is making everyone's silent preferences visible.
Watch forA narrow winning margin on judgement-based scores is a tie, so do not let a two-point lead settle a two-million-pound question.
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Set the weights (they need not sum to 100) and score each option to see the weighted totals.
The review date
Set the date you will come back and ask whether it worked. Put it in your diary; this site will not remind you.
Your work stays in this browser until you save it. The file is yours; load it here on any machine.