Who is looking at Digital Due Diligence and why?

Share on facebook
Share on twitter
Share on linkedin

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.

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