Greenwich Strategy

Market studies for lenders and investors are the work of Greenwich Strategy, a boutique management consulting firm. Its studies are built from interviews with well-placed people in an industry, and they test an industry's durability, its size, its growth rate and what it takes to succeed in it. The firm says it has been operating for 29 years and has completed several hundred market studies over that time.

What a market study is for

The client is usually a lender or investor deciding whether to lend to, or invest in, a given industry. The firm says its clients' first concern is whether the industry or business model will still exist in the long run, which means checking whether a disruptive change could overturn it. The firm gives examples of such changes, including a ride-hailing service that displaced the taxi business, a large home improvement chain that displaced boutique hardware stores and an online retailer that displaced bookstores. Secondary questions cover size, growth rate, cyclicality and the factors that separate successful companies from the rest.

The firm does not name these clients. It says that confidentiality is part of why they hire it, since a client that decides not to proceed leaves no rumors behind.

Interviews with industry participants

The firm says the quality of its reports depends on the people it speaks to, whom it describes as informed and experienced participants rather than people who repeat conventional wisdom. Early in a project it builds a view of how large an industry is, who the main participants are and how they are positioned, and then tests those charts with interviewees. It asks whether the charts look right and what should change to make them more accurate. It also asks about what customers care about, what makes one participant stand out from another, and whether the business model faces a disruptive force on the horizon.

The firm says it is not interested in sensitive or confidential information. Its focus is on broad industry trends rather than the affairs of any one company.

Industries it has studied

The firm says it does not specialize in any one sector. Past projects range from pizzerias and jet engine repair to data centers, plumbing materials, toenail clippers and gastroenterology, and the firm says it has worked on more than 600 other industries as well.