> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.orbitfin.ai/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.orbitfin.ai/part-3-use-cases/3.1-the-research-value-chain.md).

# 3.1 The research value chain

Investment research is not one task but a chain of them, running from getting hold of a document to deciding what to do about it. Understanding that chain is the clearest way to see what Orbit is for — because every use case in this section sits somewhere along it, and the platform is built to support the whole of it rather than one link.

The chain has five stages, each building on the one before.

**Access** — getting the information. Before anything can be analysed, it has to be in reach: the filing, the transcript, the news, the data, for the company in question. This is the most basic stage, and historically one of the most time-consuming — finding the right document, for the right entity, across fragmented sources. In Orbit it is immediate, because all of the data is already in one connected place, anchored to the entity master.

**Extraction** — finding out what it says. Once a document is in hand, the relevant facts have to be drawn out of it: the figures, the changes, the guidance, the statements that matter. This is the work the structured layer does in advance, so that what a document says is available as data rather than buried in text.

**Analysis** — judging whether it is good or bad, and against what. A fact on its own means little; it acquires meaning in comparison — to the same company last quarter and last year, to its peers, to expectations. This is where research starts to produce a view rather than a record, and where the connected, structured data pays off, because comparison across time and across companies depends on records produced consistently.

**Synthesis** — working out what it means for you. Analysis of a single company becomes useful to an investor when it is connected to what they hold, what they believe, and what they are watching: a thesis, a portfolio, a theme. This is where research becomes specific to a firm — and where a firm's own logic, expressed through the agents it builds, shapes the output to its own view.

**Decision support** — informing what to do. At the top of the chain, research feeds a decision: what merits attention, what has changed enough to act on, what the weight of evidence suggests. Orbit is built to support these decisions transparently — surfacing what matters, showing the evidence, and tracing every conclusion to its source — so that a person can weigh it and decide. As established in 2.9, the platform supports the decision and shows its work; the judgment, and the accountability for it, remain with the people making it.

<figure><img src="/files/Tcoqlf7eSTI6RGHpif5k" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

> *From getting the document to informing the decision — Orbit supports the whole chain.*

Two things about this chain are worth drawing out.

The first is that **value rises as you climb.** Access and extraction are necessary but undifferentiated — everyone needs them, and on their own they save time without changing outcomes. The higher stages — analysis, synthesis, decision support — are where research actually creates an edge, and they are also where the work has always been hardest to scale, because they depend on judgment applied consistently across many companies. The reason the lower stages matter is that they are the foundation the higher ones stand on: analysis is only as good as the extraction beneath it, and synthesis only as reliable as the analysis. Orbit invests in getting the whole chain right precisely so that the valuable upper stages rest on solid ground.

The second is that **the use cases that follow live at different points on the chain.** Some are mostly about access and extraction done at scale — covering more companies, reading more documents, missing less. Others reach into analysis and synthesis — comparing across a universe, connecting developments to a portfolio or a theme. The chapters ahead are organised by the work a team does — earnings, thematic research, portfolio monitoring, screening, sustainability — but each can be read as an answer to the question *how far up the chain does this take me, and across how many companies at once?* That is the question Orbit is built to change the answer to.


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