Who takes part
Asand benchmarks are for people answering on behalf of an organisation: people who work in or run a business, public body or charity. The first question asks in what capacity you’re answering, and anyone answering as a private individual is thanked and stopped before any answers are saved.
People find benchmarks through this site, through search and AI assistants, and through invitations we send to business contacts. Invitations carry a short campaign label (for example ?src=newsletter) so we know which channels work. That label never identifies a person.
How benchmarks are built
Every benchmark shares the same core questions about how a buying decision is forming: stage, timing, budget, who decides, what’s driving it, what might slow it down and how people research. Each sector then adds a short module of its own. A shared core means findings can be compared across the whole market as well as within a sector.
We don’t ask for free-text answers, so nobody can accidentally share something sensitive. We don’t ask about health, beliefs or any other special category of personal data.
Quality checks
- A hidden field that people never see but automated bots fill in. Those submissions are discarded.
- Completions under 60 seconds are flagged and excluded from published findings.
- Answers are checked against the exact questions asked, so a response can’t contain options that don’t exist.
- Repeated submissions in a short window from the same connection are rate-limited.
The scoring rubric
Your buying readiness score comes only from your own answers. It is not compared with other people, and no supplier can pay to change how it works. It is made of five dimensions, each scored from 0 to 100, then combined with these weights:
| Dimension | What it measures | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Clarity | How clearly the need and the measures of success are defined, and how far along the journey you are. | 25% |
| Alignment | How aligned the people shaping the decision are, adjusted for how many of them there are. | 20% |
| Budget | How certain the money is. | 20% |
| Timing | How close a decision is. | 20% |
| Momentum | How strong the reasons to act are, set against what might slow things down. | 15% |
Clarity
60% from whether success is written down, 40% from your stage.
| Have you written down what success looks like? | Points |
|---|---|
| Yes, documented and agreed | 100 |
| Yes, as a draft | 70 |
| Roughly, but not written down | 35 |
| Not yet | 10 |
| Where are you in your buying journey? | Points |
|---|---|
| Not looking right now | 10 |
| Exploring the problem | 30 |
| Researching options | 50 |
| Shortlisting suppliers | 70 |
| Evaluating or trialling | 85 |
| Negotiating or contracting | 95 |
| Bought in the last six months | 80 |
Alignment
80% from how aligned people are (1 scores 0, 5 scores 100, in even steps), 20% from how many people are involved, because larger groups are harder to keep aligned.
| How many people will shape the decision? | Points |
|---|---|
| Just me | 100 |
| Two or three | 90 |
| Four to six | 75 |
| Seven to ten | 60 |
| More than ten | 45 |
Budget
| Is there budget for it? | Points |
|---|---|
| Approved | 100 |
| Being requested | 70 |
| Expected, not yet requested | 45 |
| No budget yet | 15 |
| Not sure | 25 |
Timing
| When do you expect a decision? | Points |
|---|---|
| Within three months | 100 |
| In three to six months | 80 |
| In six to twelve months | 55 |
| In more than a year | 30 |
| No set timeline | 15 |
Momentum
Starts from the number of drivers you choose (one scores 40, two 65, three 85). A contract renewal, an incident or a risk or compliance driver adds 10. Each obstacle you choose takes off 10; choosing “Nothing expected” adds 15. The result is held between 0 and 100.
Bands
| Overall score | Band |
|---|---|
| 80 to 100 | Ready to decide |
| 60 to 79 | Ready to evaluate |
| 40 to 59 | Building the case |
| 0 to 39 | Exploring |
What we publish, and when
- No figure for fewer than 10 people. If a group is smaller, it is merged or left out, so nobody can be singled out.
- Peer comparisons from 30. Results pages only compare you with peers once at least 30 people in your segment have taken part.
- First report at 100 qualified responses. Before that, sector pages show the questions we’re asking, not findings.
- Sample sizes on every chart. We report raw results. If we ever weight data, we will say how and why on the chart itself.
How answers are anonymised
Benchmark answers are stored without a name, email address or IP address. If you choose to add your details at the end, they are stored separately and linked to your answers by a random reference. Before any analysis, that link is set aside: research is always run on answers alone, and only ever published or shared as aggregated findings.
Independence
Asand is funded by technology suppliers who pay for introductions people have asked for by name, by suppliers who sponsor benchmarks, and by organisations who pay for anonymised research. None of them can change a score, a question’s wording after launch, a finding or what we publish. We don’t run rankings of suppliers, and we don’t sell or share individual answers.
Sponsored benchmarks
- A sponsored benchmark says who sponsors it, on the benchmark itself and in every report that uses its findings.
- Sponsors can propose a small number of extra questions. We edit them so they are neutral and don’t lead the answer, and we can refuse them.
- The core questions and the scoring rubric are the same for every benchmark, sponsored or not.
- Sponsors receive aggregated findings only. They never receive individual answers or contact details.
- Several suppliers can sponsor research in the same area.
How we invite people
As well as people who find Asand themselves, we invite business contacts by email. Invitations go to work addresses at organisations, say who we are and why we’re writing, and include a one-click opt-out that we honour straight away. We only send them where local rules allow business contact without prior consent. Anyone who opts out goes on our do-not-contact list.
Editorial standards for guides
- Every factual statement in an explainer is checked against a primary source, such as legislation, a regulator or the body that runs a standard, and the sources are listed on the page.
- Each guide shows the date it was last reviewed.
- Buying guides give practical advice. Where something is our suggestion rather than a fact, the guide says so.
- Guides are general information, not legal or professional advice.
- Spotted a mistake? Email hello@asand.io and we’ll check and correct it.
Changes
Each benchmark carries a version number (currently 2027.1). If we change a question or the rubric, the version changes and published findings say which version they use.