Case Studies
Real decisions. Defensible answers.
InsightLab helps companies reduce the risk of important growth decisions by building the evidence needed before significant resources are committed. These examples show what that looks like in practice.
Evidence in Practice
The research is only useful if it reduces uncertainty around the decision.
Every engagement starts with a decision. Should we enter this market? Which customers should we pursue? Where can we win? What should we charge?
From there, InsightLab identifies what must be true for the decision to work, determines what evidence is needed, tests the assumptions behind it, and translates the findings into a clear point of view.
The Decision
Should the brand enter a new category?
A leading protective case manufacturer saw an opportunity to expand into phone charging accessories. The market looked attractive, but there was a more important question: did customers believe the brand had permission to play there?
The Question
Is the opportunity real?
The company needed to understand whether the category was attractive, which parts of it offered the strongest opportunity, and whether the brand could credibly stretch beyond its core business.
The Evidence
Market + Customer
The work combined category analysis, customer research, purchase behavior, competitive alternatives, and brand perceptions to identify where customer need and brand credibility overlapped.
What We Found
There was whitespace.
Customers saw a credible connection between the company's existing brand strengths and selected charging products, creating a path into the category without stretching the brand too far.
The Answer
GO
Enter the category, but focus the offer around the areas where customer need, competitive whitespace, and brand permission were strongest.
$20M
New Category Built
The research helped support the expansion into a new category that developed into a meaningful multi-million-dollar business.
The Decision
What should customers actually pay?
A fast-growing online education company operated multiple brands across a fragmented state-by-state market. Pricing had to account for different competitors, customer expectations, and market conditions — without unnecessarily leaving revenue on the table.
The Question
Where could price move?
The company needed to understand willingness to pay across markets and determine where pricing could increase without undermining demand.
The Evidence
Customer + Pricing
Customer research, competitive pricing, willingness-to-pay analysis, and market-level performance were brought together to understand how price sensitivity differed across the business.
What We Found
One price didn't fit every market.
The evidence showed meaningful differences in price tolerance by market, creating an opportunity for a more deliberate pricing strategy instead of applying the same logic everywhere.
The Answer
GO — PRICE TO THE MARKET
Move away from broad pricing assumptions and use market-level evidence to capture more value where customers demonstrated greater willingness to pay.
+23%
Revenue Growth
The pricing strategy contributed to significant revenue improvement while creating a more disciplined framework for future pricing decisions.
The Decision
Where is the realistic global growth opportunity?
A technology and digital services company serving luxury and upscale hotels wanted to understand the realistic global growth opportunity for its platform and services businesses. A large top-down market estimate wasn't enough. Leadership needed to know how many hotels actually fit the offer, where those properties were located, which customer segments were commercially attractive, and where competitive and sales realities narrowed the opportunity.
The Question
What part of the global hotel market can we realistically win?
The challenge was to move beyond theoretical market size and identify the hotel segments, regions, and accounts that fit the company's products, economics, and ability to sell.
The Evidence
Market + Competition + Customer Economics
The work built the opportunity from the property level up, segmenting hotels by geography and market tier, then layering in competitive exposure, existing customers, historical sales performance, contract value, and commercial constraints.
What We Found
The addressable market was much more concentrated than the TAM.
The analysis showed that the strongest opportunities were concentrated in specific hotel segments and regions. Removing structurally difficult accounts and markets created a much more realistic picture of where the company could compete and grow.
The Answer
GO — FOCUS THE MARKET
Prioritize the hotel segments, geographies, and target accounts where market opportunity, competitive position, customer economics, and sales capability aligned most strongly.
GLOBAL MARKET → TARGET ACCOUNTS
Market Potential to Commercial Focus
Leadership gained a defensible view of the global opportunity, a prioritized set of markets and customer segments, and a practical foundation for deciding where sales and growth resources should be concentrated.
The Decision
Should the brand enter the luggage category?
A leading protective case manufacturer was exploring expansion into luggage. Customers viewed the brand as credible enough to enter the category, but leadership needed to know whether the opportunity was commercially attractive enough to justify the investment.
The Question
Is brand permission enough?
The company needed to understand whether customer interest, market whitespace, competitive conditions, and the economics of entry created a realistic path to sustainable growth.
The Evidence
Customer + Market + Competition
Quantitative survey research tested brand permission, qualitative focus groups explored unmet needs and whitespace, and ethnographic research examined how travelers actually interacted with luggage. Competitive and market analysis then tested whether the category economics supported entry.
What We Found
Customers said yes. The market said no.
Consumers saw the brand as a credible player in luggage, but the category was heavily saturated with entrenched competitors and the cost of entry was too high relative to the realistic opportunity.
The Answer
STOP
Do not enter the category. Brand permission was real, but the competitive intensity and economics did not support a strong enough path to sustainable returns.
NO-GO
Before a Dollar Was Spent
The company avoided a costly category expansion that would have required significant investment without a clear path to attractive returns. Sometimes the most valuable research is knowing where not to go.
The Common Thread
Different decisions. The same goal.
The industries, decisions, and research methods may change. The goal remains the same: reduce uncertainty before resources are committed, build the evidence that matters, and make the recommendation useful.
01
Start with the decision
Define what leadership actually needs to decide, what must be true for the decision to work, and where the greatest uncertainty sits.
02
Test the assumptions
Use multiple sources of evidence to determine which assumptions hold up, which ones need to change, and where risk still remains.
03
Make the call
Turn the research into a clear point of view about whether the business should move forward, test further, change direction, or stop.
Clarity for What Comes Next
What decision are you trying to make?
If the decision matters and the evidence isn't clear yet, that's a good place to start — before you commit.
Discuss the decision