Client Problem

Our client is a family owned European technology company. Through intensive R&D they have developed a unique technology to convert mainly agricultural residues into high-value biofuels and biochemicals. Their domestic market for this technology was limited and they needed growth from export markets. Asian countries produce vast amounts of agricultural products and thus also large volumes of various kinds of residues as side-products. Our client was interested to discover if their technology would have realistic opportunities in selected Asian markets and if so, how they could rank these markets based on verified market attractiveness for their technology.

Our Solution

The first phase of the project was to define criteria on how to objectively measure three dimensions of the markets

Market Attractiveness

Market Maturity

Market Potential

These criteria were defined together with our client’s management team in a day-long workshop.
The second phase involved collecting required data through 60 interviews among potential customers and industry experts across five countries, complimenting this further with thorough desk research. Asian Insiders arranged the interviews based on their extensive local networks and in most cases client salespeople were directly involved.

Asian Insiders then drafted country specific reports, conclusions and recommendations. An aggregated report was additionally compiled ranking the markets comparatively. Our client was presented with this data, along with recommendations and was able then to make decisions on each market specifically.
Additionally, a preliminary project portfolio was also established and was used as a basis for future sales work.

Successful Result

Project life cycle is relatively long in technology sales and particularly when dealing with project sizes greater than EUR 100 million. Nevertheless, through various phases our client finally signed a contract with a major state-owned energy company to establish a bio-refinery in one of the target markets with more projects in the pipeline. They also have active project negotiations ongoing with several potential customers, all of which were first initiated during the Market Test Drive phase.