# Company Insight Layer v0.1 **Date:** 2026-07-03 **Status:** Product layer / source of truth **Workspace area:** `02-product/sales-companion/` **Related files:** `mobile-field-companion-principle-v0.1.md`, `route-intelligence-flow-v0.1.md`, `mobile-capture-flow-v0.1.md`, `competitive-differentiation-v0.1.md`, `WORKING_CONTEXT.md`, `01-company/decision-log/decision-log.md` ## Core Idea Companion has two equally important product layers. The first layer is the **Mobile Field Companion** for the person in the field. The second layer is the **Company Insight Layer** for the company behind the Sales Manager. The company should receive meaningful insight about the market, customers, product fit, regions, opportunities and risks — without forcing the Sales Manager into report books, diaries or bureaucratic visit logs. > Companion should turn field reality into company intelligence without making the field user feel like a reporting machine. ## Why This Matters In many sales organisations, market knowledge is lost in three places: - inside the Sales Manager's head, - inside unstructured chats, photos, voice notes and emails, - or inside reports that are too bureaucratic to be loved and too flat to create strategic value. Companion should solve this differently. The field user gives natural input because it helps them work better: route planning, visit capture, follow-up preparation, sample tasks, file packs and relationship memory. The company receives insight because Companion aggregates and interprets the field activity into strategic patterns. This must not become a digital Berichtheft. ## Two-Layer Architecture ### 1. Field User Layer This is the mobile companion for the Sales Manager, Handelsvertreter or field person. It supports: - planning a route, - discovering potential partners, - capturing visits through voice, text and photos, - preparing follow-ups, - remembering relationships, - creating email drafts, - sending file packs and sample tasks, - and reducing the mental load after a field day. The field user receives direct personal value. ### 2. Company Insight Layer This is the strategic layer for the organisation behind the field person. It supports: - market learning, - product feedback, - regional opportunity mapping, - partner category understanding, - route effectiveness, - follow-up health, - sales enablement gaps, - customer needs, - repeated objections, - asset and sample demand, - and city or regional intelligence. The company receives aggregated understanding, not raw diary entries. ## What This Is Not The Company Insight Layer is not: - a Berichtheft, - a daily diary, - a boss-control dashboard, - a GPS surveillance tool, - a visit-count competition, - a CRM reporting layer with nicer design, - a system that pressures the Sales Manager into filling forms, - or a replacement for trust between company and field person. If the Sales Manager feels monitored, Companion has failed. If the company only sees counts and status fields, Companion has also failed. ## What The Company Should Learn The company should be able to understand questions like: - Which product categories create interest in the market? - Which products are misunderstood or need better assets? - Which colours, materials or formats create demand? - Which partner categories are opening up? - Which cities or regions show momentum? - Which objections repeat? - Which local actors are culturally relevant? - Which stores, studios or architects influence others? - Which follow-ups are blocked because files, prices or samples are missing? - Which routes create learning, not just visits? - Which no-fits teach us something useful? ## Market Signals Companion should extract market signals from field activity. Examples: - Planning studios respond to Pedestal as a planning tool, not only as retail furniture. - Product samples become important when the conversation moves from retail to project work. - Certain cities may show stronger interest in hospitality or public-space use cases. - Repeated questions about masterdata, 3D files or finish details may indicate missing sales enablement assets. - A no-fit store can still teach something about category boundaries. Signals should always carry source context and confidence. No information should be invented. ## Product Learnings The company should not only see pipeline. It should see product-market learning: - product fit by partner type, - most requested assets, - common objections, - missing sample materials, - unclear product claims, - unexpected use cases, - regional taste patterns, - and sales arguments that work in the field. For Pedestal, this might mean understanding that a TV stand can be presented as: - retail object, - planning tool, - POS accessory, - hospitality solution, - office/media-room solution, - or conversation starter in a curated interior context. ## Regional Intelligence Every city or regional trip should strengthen the map. The company should see: - relevant neighbourhoods, - partner clusters, - no-fit zones, - promising local categories, - cultural multipliers, - field tips from people in the area, - and the difference between planned targets and discovered opportunities. The Vienna Field Report is the first example of this logic. ## Follow-Up Health Without Surveillance Follow-up visibility is important. But it must be framed as operational help, not control. Companion should show: - which follow-ups were generated, - which require files, - which require samples, - which need pricing or masterdata, - which are waiting for human confirmation, - which have strategic relevance, - and which relationships should not go cold. The framing is: > What does the system need to help the relationship move forward? Not: > Did the Sales Manager do enough today? ## Trust Architecture The Company Insight Layer must protect the Companion philosophy. Principles: - The Sales Manager captures reality because it helps them, not because they are forced to report. - Raw field notes should not automatically become management surveillance. - Company views should prioritise aggregated insight, patterns and actionable support. - Uncertainty must be visible. - Personal judgement should not be flattened into fake precision. - Photos, atmosphere and qualitative context are valuable, but should be handled respectfully. - The company should see where it can support the field: better assets, clearer pricing, samples, training, product material or strategic focus. ## Possible Company Dashboards The first company-side surface should not look like a classic CRM dashboard. Possible views: - **Market Signals** — strongest learnings from recent field activity. - **Product-Market Fit** — which products fit which partner types. - **Regional Intelligence** — city, route and cluster observations. - **Partner Category Map** — retail, planning, architecture, hospitality, local multipliers. - **Objection & Need Ledger** — repeated questions, blockers and missing assets. - **Follow-Up Support** — open file packs, samples, pricing and confirmation tasks. - **Field Report Generator** — convert real activity into management-ready reports. - **Opportunity Themes** — clusters of promising potential, not just individual leads. ## Data Objects The Company Insight Layer may use data objects such as: - `MarketSignal` - `ProductLearning` - `RegionalInsight` - `PartnerCategoryPattern` - `ObjectionPattern` - `AssetNeed` - `SampleDemand` - `FollowUpHealth` - `OpportunityTheme` - `NoFitLearning` - `FieldReportUpdate` These are not CRM objects. They are intelligence objects. ## Example — Vienna Raw field activity: - multiple interior stores and design spaces visited, - fixed and spontaneous conversations, - Pedestal introduced in different contexts, - planning potential observed, - local tips followed, - no-fits recorded, - studio phyne added as a planning lead, - masterdata, assets and colour samples required as follow-up. Company insight: - Vienna has value beyond dealer acquisition. - Planning studios may be a strong channel for Pedestal. - Product files and samples become crucial for project-oriented partners. - Local tips can outperform generic search. - No-fits help sharpen the partner profile. - The field report format can translate two days of activity into strategic company knowledge. ## MVP Version The MVP should start simple. After each field day, Companion can generate a company-side insight note: - top five market signals, - strongest product learnings, - important follow-ups that need company support, - open sample or asset tasks, - interesting partner categories, - no-fit learnings, - and recommended next actions for the company. This can later become a dashboard. But the first version can be a generated insight brief. ## Non-Negotiables - No Berichtheft logic. - No diary-first product design. - No boss-control framing. - No fake certainty. - No invented information. - No generic CRM dashboards. - No extraction without value for the field user. - Company insight must come from field support, not field burden. ## Product Sentence > Companion is both the mobile field companion for the Sales Manager and the market intelligence layer for the company behind them. Or shorter: > The field person gets a companion. The company gets market intelligence. ## Connection To Market Map Layer The Company Insight Layer should use the Market Map Layer to make regional intelligence visible. It should help the company understand: - where partner categories cluster, - where product fit is strongest, - where follow-ups and samples concentrate, - where no-fit learnings sharpen the Ideal Partner Profile, - which cities or regions are underdeveloped, - and which white spots should become future route opportunities. The map must be framed as market development, not employee tracking.