The market map

The market map is the principal deliverable supporting a buy-side retainer. A well-prepared map provides the client with information about its own industry that it did not previously possess.

Content

The map should include every company within the defined market, together with estimated revenue, employee count, ownership structure, the owner's age or tenure where ascertainable, sub-segment, geography, recent transactions and an assessment of the likelihood of a transaction.

Companies should then be segmented by strategic rationale rather than listed alphabetically, distinguishing targets that would contribute capabilities, geographic coverage, customers or scale alone.

Sources

Sources include corporate registries, industry associations, trade directories, licensing bodies, customer and supplier lists, job postings, professional networking platforms, local business press, credit reports and regulatory filings where available.

No single source is complete, but most data points can be triangulated. Agreement among three independent sources is generally sufficient for a screening estimate, which need only be accurate enough to support ranking.

Sources of value

Completeness. Clients are frequently unaware of a number of companies in their own market. The identification of such companies is a principal purpose of the exercise.

Assessment. A list of companies is a database; a market map incorporates the adviser's assessment. For example: a given company is likely to consider a sale because the owner is 68 years of age without a successor; another will not sell at any price; a third has declined two previous approaches.

Prioritisation. Targets should be ranked by strategic fit and likelihood of a transaction, so that the client can act immediately on the ten highest-ranked.

From map to process

The map provides the basis for structured outreach, tiered by priority and sequenced so that the client does not approach a large number of companies simultaneously in a concentrated industry.

The adviser should make the initial approach. This preserves the client's anonymity in the early stages and avoids the difficulties of a direct approach from a competitor. Discretion is a substantial part of the service provided.