Without meaning to be too self-aggrandising, we do think digital data is the bees knees.

Digital data is useful for consumer-facing businesses for obvious reasons. To better your offer as a B2C company, you want to know what your consumers think about you, your competitors and their preferences. The beauty of ‘big data’, specifically online data, is that there is a backlog to work with and extrapolate trends in sentiment to predict market opportunities. In comparison to traditional market research, which gives you a static snapshot into the minds of a minuscule sample size of consumers. Online digital data can reveal the nuanced trends in audience usage and sentiment for multiple demographics, with a level of confidence due to the large sample size that can be relied on for business decisions. An assessment of a business’s digital assets can help build a web strategy. Are your sites user-friendly? Where do you rank in comparison to competitors? What is your ROI on marketing spend?

Beyond consumer sentiment and platform analysis, digital diligence gives a prospective buyer, seller or holder of an asset an evaluation of the opportunities and risks in a certain market. It sheds light on the context of a market by analysing platform usage, marketing and audience behaviour of both a given asset and its set of competitors.

The big digital data drawn from the three aforementioned sources provides insights into:

• Market demand and growth
  • Drivers of demand
  • Market penetration
• Audience demographics and behaviour
  • Purchasing and intent
  • User journey and experience
  • Sentiment
  • Potential new customer bases
• Headroom for growth
  • Opportunities for new verticals
  • Web strategy
  • Business strategy

B2C businesses have cottoned on to the value of digital data, it’s time for B2B businesses to realise its worth and employ it to gain a competitive advantage.

So, who is commissioning digital due diligence?

20% of all the deals we have worked on have been on retail assets. Followed by food, fashion and travel, standing at 16%, 11% and 9% respectively.  Not to mention that brands, firms and Corporate Finance houses alike are cottoning on to the fact that high volumes of data can be diced and spliced to answer a myriad of questions without the limitations of client access if necessary.  So long as it is done right, it’s hugely powerful for originations, deal and portfolio teams alike.

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To find out more about how onefourzero’s digital due diligence and insights can help you identify opportunities for growth and potential risks, contact fleur@onefourzerogroup.com