Case Study
Steering a European analytics company towards the emerging markets e-commerce opportunity
Entry strategy | Market due diligence | Identification of potential partners
Business need
- A provider of business-to-business information services, analytics and e-commerce optimisation aspired to expand its presence in emerging markets.
- It commenced the engagement with the focus on Indian market, where it was considering investment in companies operating in the region.
- To make an informed expansion decision, it wanted to evaluate the market landscape of digital commerce analytics in India and identify relevant targets for acquisition.
To evaluate the market landscape of digital commerce analytics in India and identify relevant targets for acquisition.
The client outlined two key reasons for selecting RocSearch:
- Our ability to rapidly deploy customised strategic advisory teams with the necessary skills.
- Our flexible client-centric engagement models.
Approach and Methodology
- We conducted a comprehensive market due diligence exercise, mapping out the retail and e-commerce landscape in India – covering leading marketplaces, key players and future growth outlook of e-commerce retail.
We examined the acceleration of digital adoption post-Covid, growth drivers of e-commerce and the key categories contributing to an increased market penetration.
- We mapped out the customer landscape in detail, sharing insights on key customer industries including Consumer Packaged Goods, Appliances & Consumer Electronics Products and key players in each of them.
- We deep dived into the e-commerce ecosystem, the foreign direct investment laws, value chain, key industry stakeholders and market size for various types of players.
- We examined the state of the e-commerce analytics market, growth opportunities, drivers, barriers and emerging trends on how brands have been shifting their paid search spends to e-commerce advertising.
- We analysed various e-commerce platforms, such as Flipkart and Amazon, and assessed their business models, digital ecosystems and seller profiles. We studied their e-commerce advertising journeys, advertisement platform and demand-side platform strategies, benchmarked the top Indian marketplaces and shared detailed profiles of potential acquisition targets.
Business Outcomes
- The study recommended various strategic alternatives to the client for market entry and facilitated at least five advanced discussions for potential collaboration.
- The findings helped the client understand and assess India’s e-commerce analytics market, the related challenges including inherent legal complexities.
- This prompted the client to take a ‘wait and watch’ approach, while exploring potential channel partner opportunities in India.
The client decided to take a ‘wait and watch’ approach while exploring potential channel partner opportunities in India.
