Opportunity Assessment
From ambiguity to action. Gold Maple Voice helps leadership teams evaluate, compare, and prioritize growth opportunities with objective, data-driven frameworks. No more gut feel. No more spreadsheets wars.
Too Many Opportunities. Not Enough Resources.
Every leadership team faces the same problem: a pipeline full of promising initiatives, but limited capital, talent, and attention. Which ones do you pursue? Which do you kill? Which do you defer?
of companies lack a formal opportunity scoring system
Gold Maple Voice / Harvard Business Review Survey, 2024
average annual misallocation from poor prioritization
Gold Maple Voice Portfolio Benchmark
of strategic initiatives fail due to poor prioritization
Corporate Strategy Council
higher ROI for companies with disciplined assessment
Gold Maple Voice Intelligence Unit
Four Quadrants of Opportunity
We plot every opportunity on two critical dimensions: Market Attractiveness and Organizational Strength. The quadrant determines your strategic posture.
Strategic Priority
High Attractiveness • High Strength
Your sweet spot. High-growth markets where you have clear competitive advantage. Aggressive investment. Fast execution. First priority for capital and talent.
Strategy: INVEST & EXPANDSelective Growth
High Attractiveness • Low Strength
Attractive markets where you lack current capabilities. Build, partner, or acquire? Further diligence required before major commitment.
Strategy: BUILD vs. PARTNERDefend & Optimize
Low Attractiveness • High Strength
Mature or declining markets where you hold strong positions. Harvest profits. Optimize efficiency. Do not invest for growth.
Strategy: HARVEST & OPTIMIZEExit or Ignore
Low Attractiveness • Low Strength
No strategic rationale for investment. Reallocate resources to higher-potential opportunities. Consider divestiture if currently active.
Strategy: EXIT or IGNOREThe Gold Maple Voice Opportunity Scorecard™
We evaluate every opportunity across three balanced pillars. No single dimension dominates. Strategy, commercial viability, and execution are weighted equally.
Strategic Fit
Does this opportunity align with our long-term vision, brand positioning, and core competencies?
Market & Financial
What is the addressable opportunity, growth trajectory, and financial return profile?
Execution & Risk
Can we successfully deliver? What are the key risks and mitigation pathways?
25+ Evaluation Criteria
We maintain a proprietary library of validated criteria. Your assessment is customized, but built on proven dimensions.
Market Size
Current TAM, 5-year CAGR
Weight: 8-15%Competitive Intensity
Number, strength, and concentration of competitors
Weight: 5-12%Margin Potential
Gross margin, contribution margin
Weight: 10-15%Time to Revenue
Months to first dollar
Weight: 5-10%IP & Defensibility
Patents, trade secrets, brand strength
Weight: 7-12%Channel Access
Ease of distribution, partner availability
Weight: 5-10%R&D Complexity
Technical difficulty, development risk
Weight: 5-12%Regulatory Hurdle
Approval complexity, compliance cost
Weight: 5-15%From Scorecard to Strategic Decision
Data is meaningless without visualization. We present your opportunity portfolio in clear, actionable formats.
Opportunity Portfolio Map
$45M potential • 24% IRR
$28M potential • 18% IRR
$52M potential • 12% IRR
$15M potential • 8% IRR
Accelerate India Entry
Top-quartile score across all three pillars. Immediate funding recommended. Partner discussions initiated.
Release $2.5M seed funding. Form India steering committee. Report to board in Q3.
Beyond Single Decisions: Portfolio Optimization
Opportunities don't exist in isolation. We optimize your entire initiative portfolio under resource constraints.
Quick Wins
High impact, low effort. Immediate revenue or cost savings.
Strategic Bets
Transformational initiatives. Higher investment, greater reward.
Moonshots & Options
High risk, high reward. Strategic optionality.
Resource-Constrained Optimization
Given $15M annual innovation budget and 40 available engineering FTEs, which combination of initiatives maximizes 3-year NPV?
NPV vs. current allocation
The Gold Maple Voice Decision Framework
Rigorous, transparent, and collaborative. We don't deliver black boxes—we build alignment.
Inventory & Scoping
We catalog all opportunities under consideration—from formal strategic initiatives to early-stage ideas. We align on strategic objectives, constraints, and decision criteria.
Data Collection & Scoring
We gather internal and external data for each opportunity against every criterion. Primary research, secondary sources, and expert interviews. Each opportunity receives a transparent, defensible score.
Portfolio Modeling
We model trade-offs under resource constraints. What's the optimal portfolio given your budget, talent, and risk tolerance? We identify synergies and conflicts between opportunities.
Deliberation & Roadmap
We facilitate executive workshops to review findings, challenge assumptions, and build consensus. The output is a prioritized, sequenced strategic roadmap with clear owners and milestones.
The Cost of Poor Prioritization
What does it cost to pursue the wrong opportunities—or miss the right ones?
$18.7M
Average annual value captured through reallocated resources from low-priority to high-priority initiatives.
From 47 Initiatives to 8 Strategic Bets
"We were trying to do everything. We were succeeding at nothing."
A $8B industrial company had 47 active strategic initiatives across 12 business units—but revenue growth had stalled at 1.5% while competitors grew at 6-8%. Gold Maple Voice conducted a portfolio-wide opportunity assessment. We found that 70% of initiatives were below the cost of capital. 12 initiatives consumed 60% of resources but delivered only 15% of projected value.
Trusted by 200+ Leadership Teams
"Gold Maple Voice didn't just give us a ranking. They gave us a framework we now use for all major investment decisions. It's transformed our capital allocation process."
— Chief Strategy Officer
Fortune 500 Healthcare
"Before Gold Maple Voice, every business unit head argued their project was #1. The scorecard brought objective rigor. We cut 60% of projects and doubled down on the winners."
— CEO
Mid-Market Manufacturing
"The portfolio optimization model revealed that two of our 'high potential' initiatives were actually competing for the same customers. We merged them and doubled the impact."
— VP, Corporate Development
Global Technology Company
Flexible Opportunity Assessment
Opportunity Scan
High-level assessment of 5-10 opportunities. Strategic screening.
- 2-week delivery
- High-level scoring
- Prioritization matrix
Full Assessment
Comprehensive scoring, primary research, portfolio optimization.
- 6-8 week delivery
- Custom scorecard
- Portfolio optimization
Strategic Advisory
Quarterly portfolio reviews, opportunity pipeline management.
- Retainer model
- Dedicated advisor
- Board-level support
Focus your organization on what matters most.
Kill the projects that drain value. Accelerate the ones that create it. Gold Maple Voice brings objective rigor to your most difficult strategic decisions.
Opportunity Assessment FAQs
How is this different from market research or due diligence?
Market research tells you about the market. Due diligence tells you about a specific target. Opportunity assessment compares multiple opportunities against each other to inform resource allocation. It's inherently comparative and portfolio-oriented.
How do you handle subjective criteria?
We don't eliminate subjectivity—we structure it. We use scoring rubrics with explicit anchors (e.g., 1 = no competitive advantage, 5 = sustainable advantage >5 years). We facilitate workshops where leadership debates and calibrates scores. The goal is transparency and alignment, not false precision.
What if we don't have good data on some opportunities?
That's a common challenge—and a key output of our process. We flag data gaps and conduct rapid primary or secondary research to fill them. If data remains unavailable, we score based on informed judgment and flag the uncertainty. The assessment itself becomes a roadmap for due diligence.
Can you help with implementation?
Yes. Many clients engage us for ongoing strategic advisory—quarterly portfolio reviews, opportunity pipeline management, and post-investment tracking. We also support specific initiative governance and can facilitate the "kill" or "defer" conversations with initiative sponsors.