> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.getvirtualbrain.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Company Benchmark
> Benchmark a target against its peers on the criteria that matter to you, with positioning matrix, heat map, and sourced KPI tables included
**Goal:** turn five calibration answers into a full competitive benchmark (SWOT, positioning matrix, heat map, and per-player one-pagers) built on hundreds of sourced data points.
## Setup
The App calibrates itself through a short questionnaire; the only mandatory preparation is knowing your answers:
1. **Industry**: the market or subsegment to analyze.
2. **Geographic scope**: global, or a specific region.
3. **Target**: the player the analysis centers on, your client, or a competitor of interest.
4. **Peers**: the companies to compare the target against.
5. **Evaluation criteria**: what defines performance in your view. The criteria you set become the dimensions every player is scored on.
A sixth, optional step adds **internal documentation**: expert interview summaries, annual reports, past projects. The App runs on external web research alone, but your own curation work becomes the foundation of the benchmark when you provide it.
## What you get
Expect a 20-25 minute run; the report follows a pyramid structure:
* **Executive summary**: the main takeaway in a structured, executive format.
* **SWOT analysis** of your target.
* **Competitive positioning matrix**: a 2x2 grid with each player scored on both axes, and the scoring explained so you can reproduce the exact matrix in your own deck.
* **Competitive heat map**: every player ranked across every dimension you defined, with an overall score and a legend showing how scoring was determined.
* **Open questions**: what the analysis flags as essential to take the benchmark further, such as missing data sets.
* **Appendix**: an all-player comparison table, detailed evaluation criteria scored 1 to 5, an individual one-pager per player with its own quick SWOT, and consolidated KPI tables with clear source references. Even without internal documents, the demo run consolidated 200-300 data inputs.
* **Data control block**: flags inconsistencies across sources to accelerate your review.
## Full walkthrough
To see every block of the workflow execute end-to-end, including how the App hunts down missing data points, watch the template walkthrough:
The run proceeds in three phases:
A project brief summarizes every input (and detects your answer language from your query) to anchor all later steps. A literature review then extracts the key KPIs from your uploaded documents; internal data takes priority throughout. With no documents, the App instead proposes the KPIs your benchmark should measure.
Missing KPIs are listed and turned into a custom deep web research prompt. Results land in a table with sources shown alongside. The App then repeats the search on whatever is still missing: successive, increasingly focused passes that shrink the gap list and often surface multiple sources per data point. A separate market research pass produces a 10,000-15,000 word report on industry dynamics, covering KPIs like revenue, market share, and profitability.
Detailed company profiles, the 1-to-5 scoring against your criteria, the all-player comparison table (with missing data highlighted in red), business model definitions, the positioning matrix with its axis logic explained, the heat map with total and average scores, and the executive summary, plus a shorter, email-ready version and the control block comparing internal against external data points.
## Pro tips
* **Upload your internal documents.** The demo runs without them to show the App standing on its own, but expert interviews and past project material are what lift a benchmark from public-data parity to proprietary insight.
* **Choose criteria you'd defend in front of a client.** The whole report is scored against your dimensions; vague criteria produce vague heat maps.
* **Read the control block first.** Source references sit next to every KPI, and the control block lists flagged inconsistencies in one place. Review both before any number reaches a client presentation.
## Related
Turn interviews into the internal documents that power benchmarks
Duplicate the template and adapt it to your methodology
Add web sources to a Brain as benchmark inputs
Move the matrix and heat map into your own slides