Impact Analysis: A Powerful Tool For Informing Growth Strategies

The UN had pointed out a 1% drop in global economic activity shortly after the onset of the pandemic. As we’ve witnessed before, organizations are susceptible to external pressures, regulatory changes, technological innovations, and black swan events like pandemics and unexpected political conflicts. Data-driven insights are becoming more important for businesses owing to the unprecedented shifts caused by the pandemic, which have always relied on market research and consumer insights. Murphy’s Law puts things into perspective: ‘Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.’ A business has to deal with setbacks, problems, and disruptions. But how do companies figure out the full impact that an unforeseen event can have on their business? This is where an impact analysis can help.

What is Impact analysis? 

Impact analysis is a research method that can assist companies through such events. Impact analysis is exactly what it sounds like. By gathering information based on qualitative and quantitative research methods, as well as ex-ante and ex-post methods, an impact analysis can help predict what consequences an event will have on an organization. The purpose of such a study is to examine all the possible business opportunities and risks associated with a particular scenario. 

Impact analysis insights can do that for you – by providing management teams with sound, evidence-based data that helps them to connect the dots. With such information, companies can build strategies to maintain their competitive edge in new or altered environments. 

How it helps

An impact analysis can help mitigate the risks arising from unforeseen events and fill in the gaps in understanding the effects. It helps forecast the potential effects over time, thereby enabling companies to enhance accountability, determine budget allocations, and guide business decisions. 

Impact analysis can be conducted for different reasons. For example, to measure the potential impact of software or policy changes, and to refine them before they are implemented.

Case example: COVID-19 impact analysis

To re-orient their business growth strategies amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a multinational telecom company wanted to evaluate the impact of the pandemic on various industries, in addition to their resilience factor to resume normal operations. Netscribes conducted an impact analysis to determine the most resilient industries and help the company inform its future growth strategy.

Using several secondary data sources, the impact analysis comprised the following:

• Identification of the factors impacting business continuity and market demand across 22 industries and assigning a score for each factor
• Developing an industry-region matrix that helped analyze how each industry performed on those factors across regions
• Identifying resilience factors and scoring them to determine the industry-wise ability to bounce back
• Delivering an Industry Impact Index and Bounce Back Index, and drawing out strategies based on them i.e. which industries to “Attack”, “Nurture”, and “Wait & Watch”

The impact analysis helped our client to:

• Identify which industries and their subsequent accounts were most affected by the COVID-19 pandemic 
• Evaluate which industries were least impacted by the pandemic 
• Predict how soon value chains across industries would resume operations
• View key changes in the client’s existing accounts to support account managers with relevant insights 

Conducting such an impact analysis allowed the company to analyze the resilience of various industries and determine how to pivot their growth and account strategies. 

Want to know more? Download this case study now.

Fast-growing firms in the digital economy can benefit from Netscribes’ comprehensive data and insights solutions. By blending seasoned human expertise and advanced technologies, we deliver innovative solutions that help companies thrive in a digital-first world, withstand disruption, and gain a competitive advantage.