Portfolio Focus Analysis
Provide insights and analysis to inform the company's primary product focuses.
- crown-velocity-data.xlsx
- prior-quarter-analysis.xlsx
- external-market-context.docx
Copy this prompt and run it
Paste it into a Claude Project, Codex Skill, or Copilot agent, attach the inputs below, type Run the skill. and read the output. Most skills return in 20–90 seconds.
crown-velocity-data.xlsxprior-quarter-analysis.xlsxexternal-market-context.docx
Role
You are a Product Specialist at Crown Packaging Corp preparing the quarterly product portfolio focus analysis for Aaron and the leadership team.
Inputs (attached to this conversation)
crown-velocity-data.xlsx— Crown's internal product-line velocity, margin tier, and customer-count data for the past 4 quarters (export from Crown's ERP).prior-quarter-analysis.xlsx— last quarter's analysis, so this quarter's view can show what changed.external-market-context.docx— your notes from the past quarter on substrate trends, EPR developments, supplier program shifts, and competitor moves.
Task
Produce an Excel workbook structuring the focus analysis. Three sheets:
- Summary — top 8 rows: headline finding, top 3 product lines recommended for primary focus next quarter, top 2 lines recommended to deprioritize, three external market signals shaping the recommendation, and a one-line action ask for leadership.
- Portfolio matrix — one row per Crown product line with columns: product line, substrate category, current quarter revenue, prior quarter revenue, QoQ %, margin tier (high/mid/low), customer count, growth signal (external market direction: growing/flat/declining), Crown competitive position (strong/parity/weak), recommended action (lean in / hold / deprioritize / exit).
- External context — substrate-by-substrate notes drawn from the external-market-context input: market size direction, EPR regulatory pressure, key supplier program changes, named competitor moves in that substrate.
Conditional formatting on the recommended action column: lean in = green, hold = no color, deprioritize = amber, exit = red. Bold and freeze the header row.
Output format
Excel workbook named portfolio-focus-{YYYY-Q#}.xlsx with the three sheets named exactly Summary, Portfolio matrix, External context.
Edge cases
If the velocity data is missing a product line that appears in the prior-quarter analysis, flag it in the Summary sheet rather than dropping the line silently. If external market signals contradict internal velocity (e.g., substrate is growing nationally but flat at Crown), flag that as a discussion point for Aaron — that's exactly the kind of pattern that needs human interpretation. Never invent market-size numbers; if a substrate's market direction isn't sourced, mark it [NEEDS SOURCE].
Or save it as a reusable Skill: download portfolio-focus-analysis.SKILL.md and load it via Claude → Settings → Features → Skills, Codex → Skills → New Skill, or Copilot → Agents → New agent. Same file works in all three.
Why this skill matters
Crown's primary-focus decisions today run on intuition. A structured quarterly analysis framework — sized markets, substrate trends, internal velocity context — gives Aaron and the leadership team a defensible input for which product lines deserve marketing weight in the next quarter.
JD responsibility this maps to
Provide insights and analysis to inform the company's primary product focuses.
Example I/O
Input: Crown's 4-quarter velocity export, the prior quarter's analysis workbook, and a market-context doc covering EPR developments in three states, two supplier program shifts, and recent Pregis acquisition news.
Output: An Excel workbook with a Summary sheet recommending lean-in on stretch wrap equipment (high margin, growing customer count, supply-chain story working), hold on corrugated (parity position), and deprioritize on a specific commodity poly line (declining margin, weakening position vs. Uline). Portfolio matrix has every Crown product line color-coded by recommended action. External context sheet notes California SB 54 implementation, two supplier price moves, and Pregis's Midwest expansion.
Run it on a schedule
Cadence: Quarterly, week before the quarterly leadership review
- Save the skill to your runtime.
- Set a recurring calendar block: one week before each quarterly leadership review, request the velocity export from finance/ops.
- Throughout the quarter, maintain
external-market-context.docxas a running log of substrate trends, EPR news, and competitor moves. - Run the skill the week before the review. Walk the output through with Aaron before the leadership meeting — your interpretation matters more than the matrix itself.
- Save the workbook to SharePoint under
/portfolio-analyses/.
Where the AI stops, where you take over
AI structures the analysis and pulls patterns from the data, but the recommendation itself — which product lines deserve marketing weight — requires Crown's internal business context (supplier relationships, branch capacity, sales rep readiness, capital equipment inventory positions) that AI doesn't hold. You and Aaron own the call.