Research & Market Insights by Marcus A. Volz
Research on industrial markets, market access, B2B buyer behaviour, search behaviour and AI-shaped visibility — with a particular focus on South America and cross-border market decisions.
My work combines market analysis with search and source intelligence. Some studies examine companies, projects, procurement structures and industrial markets. Others look at how search behaviour, digital visibility and AI systems shape what companies and markets are able to see — and how they are seen.
Current research focus
Market analysis is now the central thread. International SEO, AI visibility and semantic analysis remain part of the toolkit where they help explain demand, market perception, source gaps or international visibility.
1. Market Analysis: From Market Size to Market Access
Current flagship research
European Suppliers in Vaca Muerta examines 24 European industrial supplier cases to understand how companies actually reach customers and projects in Argentina’s unconventional oil and gas market.
The study moves beyond headline demand and asks a more practical question: who selects the equipment, who buys it, which contractors or integrators control access, and what local structure is required to support the product?
24 supplier cases
European companies were assessed across pumps and valves, automation and measurement, export infrastructure, and water and process technologies.
One common framework
Each case was analysed through the same market-access framework and the strength of the public evidence behind the company’s position was graded.
Six recurring routes
Direct project access, local service platforms, distributors or specialist partners, contractor access, cluster-based market development, and local production or value creation.
Market-access finding
Two technically comparable suppliers can occupy very different positions because they reach the market through different procurement, project and local-service structures.
Personal insight:
How European Suppliers Enter Vaca Muerta
Full research report:
European Suppliers in Vaca Muerta — Econosur
DOI:
10.5281/zenodo.21965540
2. South America as a Research Field
Living and working in Argentina since 2006 has made South America more than a regional specialization. It is the main field in which I apply company research, project analysis, public-source verification and market-structure analysis.
What the research covers
- Industrial markets: energy, oil and gas, mining, manufacturing, infrastructure and logistics
- Companies and projects: operators, suppliers, investment projects, infrastructure and execution
- Market access: procurement routes, local partners, distributors, contractors and service structures
- Commercial context: regulation, trade, market structure and the gap between announced opportunity and practical access
Econosur: the research platform
Econosur is where this work is developed at full market depth. The platform combines country, industry, company and project analysis with longer research reports and custom market analysis.
Argentina’s copper buildout: Where the supplier opportunity starts before production
My analysis of Argentina’s emerging copper-project pipeline was published by Global Mining Review on 14 September 2026.
Using Vicuña and Los Azules as the main examples, the article examines why supplier opportunities begin during engineering, early works, infrastructure development, supplier qualification and procurement — years before the first copper is produced.
Argentina’s Race for Water
My analysis of the planned deepening of the Paraná navigation channel was published by DVZ — Deutsche Verkehrs-Zeitung on 9 September 2026, with an English version published by DVZ International.
The article examines why the project matters beyond shipping depth: for export logistics around Rosario, long-term waterway reliability, regional trade through the Paraguay–Paraná system and the supplier opportunities created by a 25-year concession.
Read “Argentina’s Race for Water” at DVZ International →
Read the German edition at DVZ →
Chile’s Battery Storage Boom
My analysis “Chiles Batteriespeicher-Boom: Warum Netzengpässe den Markt antreiben” was published by pv magazine Deutschland on 1 September 2026.
The article examines Chile’s rapidly expanding battery-storage market and the role of transmission constraints, renewable-energy curtailment and changing power-market economics in driving storage investment.
Read the article at pv magazine Deutschland →3. Market & Search Intelligence
Search data and digital source ecosystems can add a second layer to conventional market research. They show how demand is expressed, which topics gain or lose attention, how competitors are framed and where public information is structurally weak.
Why B2B SEO Should Start With the Buying Center
Buying-Center-First B2B SEO Framework: a method for connecting organisational decision structures with search strategy in complex B2B purchases.
Search demand becomes more useful when it is connected to the people behind it. In high-value or technically complex purchases, engineering, procurement, finance, legal and management may all influence the same decision while requiring different information and evidence.
Framework
Buying Center → Buyer Role → Buying Job → Question → Search Behaviour → Search Intent → Content
The framework builds on established buying-center and buying-job concepts and adds a search layer. The depth of the analysis depends on the buying process: short, standardised purchases may require only a light buyer analysis, while long sales cycles, high deal values, technical requirements and multiple stakeholders justify a more detailed mapping of roles, questions and information needs.
Read the full Buying-Center-First B2B SEO Framework →
Search Queries as an Early Market Signal
Research question: Can changes in search language reveal economic stress or shifts in demand before they become visible in conventional market indicators?
Signals examined
- Changes in terminology and search intent
- Movement from discretionary to necessity-oriented queries
- Changes in co-occurrence and topic clusters
- Search behaviour as a complement to conventional market indicators
International Market Entry and Local Market Language
International market entry also has a search dimension. A company may understand the product market but still misunderstand how buyers describe the problem, which local entities matter and how the competitive landscape is represented online.
Market first: search analysis is most useful when it supports a real market question — demand, competitive structure, local terminology, buyer behaviour or market perception.
Advisory work that connects these questions with international B2B visibility is developed through VolzMarketing.
4. International SEO, Semantic SEO & AI Visibility
SEO and AI visibility remain important parts of my work, but they now sit inside a broader market-intelligence context. The central question is less “How do we optimize for an algorithm?” and more “How is a company, product or market represented across search and AI systems, and what does that reveal or distort?”
The Semantic SEO Framework
Structural semantics
Schema.org, semantic HTML and entity markup help machines identify structure and relationships.
Topical semantics
Entity relationships, topic depth and content architecture establish what a company or website is actually about.
Interpretative semantics
The framing and context around an entity influence how search engines and AI systems interpret its role, market and relevance.
Why Brands Need Multi-Layered Systems
This work developed from international SEO into a broader interest in how digital information systems construct market visibility. Structured data alone cannot compensate for thin local information, weak entity definition or a missing source ecosystem.
5. Case Studies: When Digital Visibility Diverges from Market Reality
The Trolli Case: AI Visibility vs. Local Search Presence
The Trolli Spain analysis examined a global brand that was visible to AI systems while remaining weakly represented for important local Spanish search terminology.
The case highlighted a localization problem: global brand knowledge does not automatically create a strong local entity, local category relevance or local search visibility.
Western Union vs. AI: The Argentina Information Gap
The Argentina case showed how AI systems can fall back on weak or irrelevant sources when local market realities are poorly documented. This matters in markets where regulations, exchange-rate systems and payment behaviour change quickly.
The underlying issue is broader than AI optimization: a weak local source ecosystem can distort how an international market is interpreted by people and machines alike.
6. How the Research Method Has Evolved
The common thread across these projects is evidence. The tools vary with the question, but the objective is to distinguish what is documented, what is inferred and what remains uncertain.
| Research layer | Typical evidence | Question |
|---|---|---|
| Market structure | Company records, project documents, regulation, trade and industry sources | How does the market actually work? |
| Company & project evidence | Primary company sources, operators, contractors, public authorities and project records | What can be documented about a company’s real position? |
| Market access | Procurement structures, partners, distributors, service capacity and project chains | How does a supplier reach the buyer or project? |
| Buyer & decision structure | Buying centers, stakeholder roles, buying jobs, buyer questions and decision requirements | Who needs which information before the organisation can move forward? |
| Search intelligence | Queries, search results, content structures and competitor visibility | How is demand or competition expressed digitally? |
| AI & source analysis | AI answers, citations, entity representation and source ecosystems | How is the market interpreted by AI systems, and where are the information gaps? |
The methodological link
Market research and search intelligence are most useful when they answer the same practical problem: what is happening, who is involved in the relevant decision, which information those people need, what evidence supports the conclusion, and where uncertainty remains?
7. Three Platforms, Three Different Roles
Selected Research & Published Analysis
- Global Mining Review — Argentina’s copper buildout: Where the supplier opportunity starts before production : Analysis of Vicuña, Los Azules and the supplier opportunities created during engineering, early works, infrastructure development and procurement before production, published 14 September 2026
- DVZ International — Argentina’s Race for Water : Analysis of the Paraná waterway, export logistics, long-term navigability and supplier implications, published September 2026; also published in German by DVZ — Deutsche Verkehrs-Zeitung
- pv magazine Deutschland — Chile’s Battery Storage Boom : Analysis of grid constraints, renewable-energy curtailment and battery-storage investment in Chile, published September 2026
- European Suppliers in Vaca Muerta : Market-access analysis based on 24 European supplier cases
- Full Vaca Muerta Research Report : Econosur report with evidence grades and six access models
- Buying-Center-First B2B SEO Framework : Framework connecting buyer roles, buying jobs, questions, search behaviour, search intent and content
- Semantic Recession Detection : Search queries as an early market signal
- Semantic SEO Framework : Structural, topical and interpretative semantics
- Trolli Case Study : Local search visibility and AI representation
- Western Union vs. AI : Information gaps in the Argentine market
- International Market Entry Strategies : Local market language and digital market entry