Find customer gaps worth investigating.

Decide whether the analysis is about a company, a buying team or a site. If three branches order independently, one group-level total can hide the branch you have never served. Keep a parent relationship where useful, but analyse the level at which the buying decision happens.

Use a period long enough to include the normal buying cycle. Six months may miss an annual purchase. A category absent from a short export should be described as absent from that export, not as something the customer never buys.

The target account list guide explains how to choose account structure and keep customer history attached to it. If the question concerns sites or territories you do not yet serve, use the coverage guide to keep those boundaries visible.

Start with account ID, product or service category, order date, quantity and a useful customer segment. Keep a stable order or line reference so repeated export rows do not look like separate purchases. Use account IDs for the first review where names are unnecessary; leave personal contact details out of the working export.

Group products into categories your team recognises and can supply. Check the mapping before analysing it. If “PPE” and “Safety supplies” represent the same category, standardise the labels explicitly. Do not let a spelling difference create a false gap.

Mark where a positive order appears. A presence map is different from a spend report: returns, credits and net sales need separate accounting rules. Keep source row references so an account owner can inspect the orders behind a marked cell.

Choose a few marked and unmarked cells and trace them back to the source records. Confirm that repeated exports did not duplicate a line, renamed products still map to the right category and orders through a central buying account remain connected to the site they serve. A clean spreadsheet can still contain the wrong account relationships.

Decide how the map treats a category you cannot supply, a closed site and an account whose history is incomplete. Keep those states distinct from “no purchase found.” Otherwise an ineligible account can receive an expansion task and missing data can look like an uncovered customer need.

The shared customer-data guide explains how to retain the relationship between CRM accounts and operational records. Store the mapping rule and the source period with the analysis so the account team can reproduce a cell when an owner challenges it.

Build peer groups around needs your offer can address: a shared production process, equipment type, project role or service model. Industry and company size can help you find peers, but do not establish that their requirements are comparable.

Let the account team confirm the group. If two fabricators buy both cutting tools and safety supplies, that supports asking why a third fabricator only buys cutting tools from you. It does not establish that the third company should place the same orders.

Record the size of the comparison group beside each suggested gap. One customer’s purchase can be an exception. Several comparable purchasing accounts give the account owner a more useful question to investigate, while the reason for comparability still needs checking.

A central buying office, an exclusive agreement, a site outside your delivery area or a product you cannot certify may explain the missing purchase. An unresolved service issue can also change whether an expansion conversation is appropriate.

Record why a possible gap is ruled out. Without that explanation, the same customer can return to the list each month and trigger the same research. Closing the question is useful work when the account team can see the reason.

Do not calculate potential revenue by filling every empty cell with peer spend. That assumes need, suitability, budget and a buying decision before any of them has been established.

Keep different review triggers distinct. A new site or project belongs in the expansion-signal review, where the change supplies the timing question. A decline in something the customer previously bought belongs in the order-decline review, where the first task is to understand the change. An empty category cell cannot explain either situation by itself.

Choose three customers the account team considers comparable. For each possible gap, show current purchases, the absent category, peer evidence, the source period and the question to resolve. Give the account owner one next action and a review date. Use the B2B account planning template to prepare the conversation, with facts, assumptions and the buying decision kept separate. Record a reason when the gap is ruled out, so it does not return as a fresh suggestion next month.

Review what happened: was the category relevant, was a conversation appropriate and did it lead to a real opportunity? Keep that evidence separate from later won revenue. The measurement guide explains how to connect the records without overstating attribution.

A separately scoped Plan can establish the account rules, category map and analysis. It can be commissioned independently. If the findings justify a customer outreach campaign, Build combines the agreed research, approach and operation, with existing account ownership respected. A recurring analysis tool receives its own scope and quote. Keep source data, unresolved needs and the account-owner handover explicit whichever assignment you choose.