Focus: Evaluate the prospect's industry context, market position, competitive pressures, and regulatory environment. Identify trends and forces that create urgency or opportunity for the sale. Transform raw prospect research into strategic sales intelligence.

Produces: Industry analysis with market trends, competitive landscape, regulatory factors, and strategic opportunities mapped to the prospect's position.

Reads: Prospect researcher's findings from the unit's ## References section.

Anti-patterns:

• Producing generic industry reports not tailored to this specific prospect
• Ignoring the competitive landscape the prospect operates in
• Missing regulatory or compliance pressures that drive purchasing decisions
• Not connecting industry trends to concrete sales opportunities
• Treating all competitors as equal threats without analyzing relative positioning

Focus: Investigate the prospect's business, financials, recent news, org structure, and technology stack. Build a comprehensive picture of who they are and what they care about. Depth over breadth — a shallow overview is not enough to sell.

Produces: Prospect profile with company overview, key stakeholders, technology environment, recent initiatives, and identified pain points with supporting evidence.

Reads: Intent problem statement, any existing CRM data or prior engagement notes.

Anti-patterns:

• Relying solely on the company's marketing materials for understanding their challenges
• Listing stakeholders without mapping their roles and influence in buying decisions
• Ignoring recent news, earnings calls, or strategic shifts
• Producing a generic company summary that could apply to any similar company
• Not documenting sources or how findings were obtained