A global equipment landscape assessment that reshaped an FY26 capital plan.

1. 01 The decision

   The client's board was reviewing a $340M FY26 capital plan for a next-generation excavator platform. Marketing had a bullish forecast; the CFO wanted an independent view before signing off. The board wanted a single source of truth that could survive an audit-committee review.

2. 02 How we ran it

   A senior research lead spent week one restructuring the brief around the specific board decision. Two domain analysts assembled the evidence stack — 22 country-level equipment registrations, 14 dealer-channel primary interviews across NA/EU/APAC, and rebuilt the internal forecast bottom-up from application segments. A mid-project interim review with the CFO surfaced a critical assumption on emerging-market fleet replacement cycles that we corrected before final delivery.

3. 03 What we shipped

   A 68-page report + Excel data workbook + a 90-minute analyst call with the board finance committee. Every headline number tied back to a source in the workbook. Sensitivity analysis was included for the three assumptions with the widest ranges.

4. 04 What changed

   The FY26 plan was approved in a single review cycle — three fewer meetings than the norm. Our forecast was cited in the board resolution itself. The client extended the engagement into a rolling quarterly refresh for the following two fiscal years.

Client identity is anonymised in this write-up. On-record versions are available on request where the client has given explicit consent — reach the desk for named references.