The Process Steps
- Step 1 - Initiation
- Step 2 - Research
- Step 3 - Analysis
- Step 4 - Market Shaping Options
- Step 5 - Consultation and Recommendation
- Step 6 - Implementation

Step 3 - Analysis

Analysis of research findings

Having collected all of the data, it will need to be analysed to determine:

• The overall shape of the market;
• A collective picture of public sector demand within the market over a defined period; 
• Current capacity available to meet this demand and information on any capacity pinch points;
• Barriers to the marketplace;
• Normalising the data - rechecking with sources of data.

Common themes and findings

The analysis should lead on naturally to the development of key findings. The exact nature of the programme team's findings will vary but from the Kelly work there are many common themes that the findings could relate to. For example, there may be:

• Dominance of the market by a limited number of suppliers, limited new market entrants, or a tendency for incumbent suppliers to win contracts;
• Regional variance in the strength and availability of suppliers- leading to differences in regional competitiveness;
• Trends towards market consolidation, or decline, lack of market interest and the underlying reasons why;
• A perception amongst suppliers that the playing field is uncompetitive;
• A lack of or inconsistent market intelligence (forward demand plans), which makes the market less attractive to potential new suppliers;
• A rapidly changing policy and regulatory environment, which creates market uncertainty and contributes to contractual complexities;
• A market perception of too many policies, which are not all mutually reinforcing. This may drive sub- optimal behaviour in both demanders and industry; 
• A lack of clarity in communicating the relative priority of different policies creating uncertainty in the market;
• A number of communication channels making it difficult for industry to know who to talk to or what to give priority to;
• Funding, regulation, planning and advisory sources that are not integrated and therefore create a complex landscape; 
• Limited bid capacity is driving selective bidding by suppliers;
• A substantial issue concerning the cost of bidding and failing;
• Heavy reliance on external advisors in terms of project management and understanding the market;
• Current public sector financing methods that do not drive the right behaviours;   
• Issues surrounding appropriate deal structures and risk transfer;
• An issue regarding the length of time a project takes from outline business case to final close;
• Planning issues;
• Scope to increase the level of collaborative contracts whilst balanced with encouraging competition.

Scenario planning for analysis

Scenario planning is a proven method of identifying potential solutions in response to complex problems. It involves discussing ideas about what you are trying to achieve in an ideal world unconstrained by current conditions. You may wish to apply this method to the market with the aim of improving competitiveness, reducing dependency on particular suppliers, delivering efficiency savings and proposing workable solutions i.e. what the team would like the market to look like and delivery options. Outcomes from a workshop early in the process can be used to inform the specification requirement for the data collection exercise and also for the subsequent analysis. This first workshop would identify:

• The nature of the current market, 
• The drivers which cause the market to operate in the ways that it does; 
• What changes are imminent or anticipated which will affect the market; and 
• What an "ideal" market might look like.

Your eventual scenarios should each present an imaginable and coherent future, they should also be structurally distinct. None of your scenarios should be confused with predictions.

This technique proved valuable in identifying initial market shaping proposals for the Construction, Waste Management and Independent Sector Treatment Centre markets.