Description
A qualitative market assessment is key to evaluating events that may positively or negatively impact the company’s market environment. Identifying these events and understanding market opportunities early creates a competitive advantage, especially when teams are trained to recognize subtle market signals for potentially high-impact events.
Interestingly, qualitative marketing approaches can be applied across various individuals, fostering insightful and challenging discussions on these events. Are they impactful? Are they certain? What future opportunities might arise? How can current programs be made more resilient? These and many other questions can be addressed.
The Excel tool proposed here can be used by teams or individuals to capture market events and assess their impact and probability of occurrence on a graph. It can be utilized in multiple contexts—short meetings, workshops, or market analysis-focused sessions—with different teams. Its primary purpose is to document events, assign a probability of occurrence, and evaluate their impact. However, its greatest benefit lies in providing a structured approach that facilitates productive discussions within teams.
The tool offers a graphical representation with multiple options, enabling discussions that focus on events with significant impact, high probability, or both. Teams can work together to list such events, assign a probability of occurrence, evaluate their impact on a scale from 0 to 9, and review their implications.
This tool is essential for summarizing events and delivering a concise, clear message about the market environment. It creates a strong foundation for addressing events identified through market analysis tools such as Porter’s Five Forces or PESTLE. Concretely, it can be used to consolidate insights from different tools or as part of team sessions where individuals can quickly review and discuss market events collectively.
Key Features of the Market Qualitative Forecast Tool
- Create a list of events with both long and short descriptions. The short description will be used for the graph (up to 255 events).
- Set two axis metrics for each event, using a scale from 0 to 9:
- The first axis represents the probability of occurrence.
- The second axis represents the impact.
- This ensures that events with higher impact and higher probability appear in the top-right corner, making them a priority for discussion.
- Consider adding a code to classify the event’s impact as positive, negative, or neutral (use neutral if the impact is undetermined). This allows the estimated impact to be displayed in color if needed.
- The graph is updated by selecting one of the following display options:
- All events with any color
- Only positive events
- Only negative events
- Only neutral events
- All events in just three colors
Advanced Features
Use the “Show Toolbar” function to:
- Define custom colors for positive, neutral, and negative impact events (default: green, gray, and red).
- Set the marker style (Options: 1 – Square, 2 – Diamond, 3 – Triangle, 5 – Star, 8 – Circle, 9 – Plus).
- Adjust the marker size (from 2 to 72) to ensure the appropriate size for presentations.
- Set or remove the graph title and axis titles as needed.
- Select how legends should be displayed ( left, right, top, bottom, or center).
These parameters can be hidden again by clicking the “Hide Toolbar” button.
Note: You have full access to the macros in this file, so you can adapt or create new macros as needed. Please share any additional requirements you’d like to see addressed in a future version.
Links and References
Event impact and probability need a clear structural market view. See Market Mix for the context guiding these assessments.
Usage & Licensing
Please review the Sales Conditions published on this website to fully understand your rights and the restrictions regarding the use of this product. Our products are intended for professional use only and are not designed for consumer purposes.
The products provided under this agreement are exclusively for the individual buyer or members of the same business unit. Sharing, distributing, or making them available to individuals or teams outside the designated user or relevant business unit is strictly prohibited. For software licensing purposes, a business unit is limited to a maximum of 100 employees, including full-time, part-time, and temporary staff. Additional licenses must be purchased in multiples of 100 if this limit is exceeded.
The provided download link is valid for two months and allows up to 10 downloads. Be sure to save a copy before the link expires or the download limit is reached. Users have full access to the application product, including any embedded macros, and may make necessary adjustments to suit their needs. However, all branding, trademarks, and references to marketingdecision.org must remain visible and intact within the application.
Ensure that you have Microsoft Excel and a PC running Windows before purchasing this application. This application uses advanced dynamic range calculations introduced by Microsoft. Please ensure that you are using a compatible version of Excel, such as Microsoft 365, or any version released after Excel 2019 which supports this feature.
We appreciate your feedback on how to improve this application. Feel free to share your suggestions with us at contact@marketingdecision.org
