MMarket ResearchIndia

Hiring guide · 4 min read

Market Sizing & Forecasting: 10 Questions to Ask Before You Hire a Research Firm

Ten questions to ask any market sizing & forecasting provider in India before you sign, covering fieldwork, quality, sampling, data security and reporting.

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Quick answer

Before hiring a market sizing & forecasting firm, ask who does the fieldwork, how quality is checked, how the sample is designed, which languages they cover, how data is secured, who writes the report, and what the deliverables include.

At a glance

Guide type
Hiring guide · 4 minute read
Method covered
Market Sizing & Forecasting
Research family
Strategy research
Typical timeline
4–8 weeks, depending on how much primary validation the estimate needs
Typical sample
a bottom-up build supported by 10–20 supply-side validation interviews
Written for
Buyers running a vendor call · Procurement scoring proposals · First-time commissioners

Key takeaways

  • Good firms answer these questions confidently
  • Ask for QC evidence from past projects
  • Check DPDP Act compliance
  • Meet the person who will lead your project

Reader intent

Who this guide is for

Three readers arrive here with different problems. Each should be able to act on this page without reading all of it.

  • Buyers running a vendor call

    Questions that reveal whether an agency has actually run market sizing & forecasting at your scale.

  • Procurement scoring proposals

    A way to score the answers rather than the presentation.

  • First-time commissioners

    What good answers sound like, so you can tell them from merely fluent ones.

01

The 10 questions

  • Do you run fieldwork in-house in my cities?
  • How do you verify interviews?
  • How will you design the sample?
  • Which languages do you work in?
  • How do you handle translation?
  • How is data secured, and are you DPDP compliant?
  • Who leads the project day to day?
  • Who writes the report?
  • What exactly will I receive? (e.g. market model, five-year forecast, segment sizing)
  • Can I see a sample report?

02

How Market Research India can help

Market Research India designs and runs market sizing & forecasting projects across 50 Indian cities and 30 industries. A senior research director leads every study, and our own supervised teams handle the fieldwork. You get clear recommendations, not just data tables.

Share your objective and we will send a scoped, fixed-fee proposal within 24 hours, with a recommended method, sample and timeline.

What goes wrong

Common mistakes in market sizing & forecasting

Most disappointing market sizing & forecasting studies fail for reasons that were visible in the design, not in the fieldwork. These are the ones we see most often, and what to do instead.

  • 01

    One source, multiplied

    A single published figure extended by assumptions inherits every error in the original and adds new ones. Build two independent estimates and reconcile them.

  • 02

    Confusing the total market with the reachable one

    TAM impresses investors and misleads planners. State SAM and SOM explicitly, with the constraints that separate them.

  • 03

    Assumptions nobody can trace

    Any input without a visible source is challenged once and ignored thereafter. One assumption, one line, one source.

  • 04

    Borrowed growth rates

    A CAGR copied from a published report is a guess with a decimal point. Derive growth from drivers you can observe — households, outlets, penetration, price.

  • 05

    Assumptions buried in the model

    A number nobody can trace is challenged once and ignored thereafter. Every assumption on its own labelled line, with its source.

  • 06

    Analysis with no recommendation attached

    Senior readers need a position. Close each section with what you would do, and what would have to be true for you to change your mind.

Run through this before sign-off

Your checklist before you brief anyone

A working sequence for a market sizing & forecasting project. Most of it costs nothing, and it saves the two weeks a re-field would take.

  1. 1

    Build the estimate top-down and bottom-up independently, then explain the gap.

  2. 2

    Validate with manufacturers, distributors or regulators who see actual volume.

  3. 3

    Put every assumption on its own labelled line, with its source and date.

  4. 4

    Separate TAM, SAM and SOM with the constraint that creates each step.

  5. 5

    Scenario the three assumptions the answer is most sensitive to.

  6. 6

    Hand over a working model rather than a PDF, so the team can update it next quarter.

  7. 7

    Agree in writing who acts on each finding, and by when, before the debrief ends.

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Answers

Frequently asked questions

The questions buyers ask us most often before they commission market sizing & forecasting.

Will you answer these questions for us?

Gladly. Ask us on a discovery call.

Request a proposal

Talk to a market sizing & forecasting specialist.

From guide to project

Where market sizing & forecasting actually gets commissioned

If this guide has settled the method, these are the pages worth opening next: the service itself, and the markets where market sizing & forecasting is most often run for our clients.

Keep exploring

More reading on market sizing & forecasting

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