Before committing a significant budget to a new market, most teams face the same uncertainty.

“How much should we spend to validate this market entry plan?”

The challenge is not simply access to information. Many teams struggle to find information that is trusted, validated, and clearly translated into practical market entry recommendations.

At this stage, the next step often means spending $100,000 USD to $200,000 USD on consulting. Yet teams still hesitate, unsure whether the outcome will truly support a clear decision to move forward, adjust the plan, or walk away.

Expert Solution is designed for this exact decision stage. It helps companies gain enough clarity to decide before committing capital, resources, and reputation.

Why Early Market Entry Decisions Are Hard

When exploring a new country or region, teams often ask:

• Is that country open to new entrants?
• Is the industry still growing in the future or only temporarily?
• How much should we spend to learn all this, and is it worth paying USD 100–200k for consulting without knowing if we can proceed afterward?

At this stage, decisions tend to slow down. Available market information is not yet strong or clear enough to support a confident next step.

What Expert Solution Actually Does

Despite the name, ES is not about experts alone.

It is a structured market exploration framework designed to reduce false confidence and surface real decision signals.

Instead of jumping straight into heavy consulting, ES sits one step earlier by helping teams answer:

“Do we move forward, pause, pivot, or walk away?”

Arches’s Approach

Expert Solution is built on two core components:

• Structured desk research frameworks
• Expert validation interviews

Each component addresses a different risk that commonly leads to failed or delayed market entry.

1. Structured Desk Research Frameworks

Before making any serious decision, teams need a structured way to interpret market information.

1.1. Macro Reality Check

Before entering a new market, teams need to understand how external conditions affect the way a business can actually operate. A macro reality check helps teams investigate the opportunities and threats of a target country.

Common pain points

Teams often struggle with:

• Plenty of information, but little clarity on what it means for decision-making
• Conflicting signals from different reports and sources

This makes it difficult to move from analysis to the next steps.

What Expert Solution Covers

The Macro Reality Check focuses on the conditions that directly affect new entrants, structured around PESTLE:

• Political: government direction with client’s country, trade policy,…
• Legal: overall legal framework, laws and policies for foreign companies,…
• Economic: key economic indicators and key drivers of the economy,…
• Social: demographics, local cultures, consumer behavior,…
• Environmental: business environment, sustainable movement,…
• Technological: technology development and adoption, direction for new technology,…
  

The outcome is a clear macro outlook that helps teams understand how the market environment is likely to shape entry decisions

1.2. Industry Deep Dive

After assessing the country’s environment, teams need to understand whether the target industry itself is worth entering.

An entry’s success depends on:

• How the industry is structured, and
• How competition, distribution, and pricing work in practice

Therefore, this layer will help teams understand how the target industry operates

Common pain points

However, teams often encounter:

• Limited understanding of how competitors position themselves in the market
• Unclear pricing levels in the market

This makes it difficult for teams to assess the industry’s competitive intensity and their own room to compete.

What Expert Solution covers

This layer analyzes the target industry, tailored to each industry and client brief, focusing on the factors most relevant to entry decisions:

• Market size & growth: market value, volume, and growth patterns
• Value chain: how products or services move from supply to end customers
• Key players: major companies and their roles in the market
• Products: segmentation, positioning, and local preferences
• Pricing: price ranges, margin expectations, and pricing drivers

The outcome is a clear industry view that helps teams assess the competitive landscape and the real potential for entering and competing in the market.

2. Expert Validation

Why this matters

While desk research provides structured insights on macro conditions and industry structure, it cannot fully capture how the market operates in real life. Reports explain what is happening, but they rarely show how decisions are actually made, where operational friction exists, or why certain strategies fail despite strong data. 

Common pain points

Teams often face:

• Desk research that stays descriptive but does not validate real-world dynamics
• Limited access to practical insights needed to test assumptions before moving forward

Without real-world validation, teams risk moving ahead based on assumptions rather than true insights.

What Expert Solution covers

Expert Solution uses expert interviews to validate and supplement desk research findings.

Through structured online interviews, we connect clients with relevant experts in the target industry to:

• cross-check desk research findings
• clarify how processes work in practice
• test key assumptions against real operating experience
• focus attention on insights that matter most for decision-making

All expert engagements follow strict compliance and screening standards to ensure relevance and data integrity.

This step adds practical context to analysis and helps teams test their thinking before making decisions.

→ See how we approach with ES in the skincare market among ASEAN

How Arches Supports Better Decisions

What defines Expert Solution is how Arches helps teams think clearly before they spend.

Arches combines various inputs:

• Desk research built from reliable, validated sources to establish market context
• Expert input gathered through a strict screening and compliance process to ensure direct relevance to the client’s industry and brief.
• Local consultant insights from teams on the ground across many countries that can add local insights to the study

This approach gives teams practical decision support without the high cost and long timelines often associated with large consulting firms.

Who Expert Solution Is Designed For

Expert Solution is built for teams shaping early decisions, including:

• Corporations assessing market entry or expansion scenarios
• Strategy and Business Development teams pressure-testing initial assumptions
• Firms that want direction, not just information

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Back to the question: How much should you spend to validate a market entry plan?

Not USD 100,000 – 200,000 at a stage where uncertainty is still high.

Expert Solution solves the problem of market entry research spending by aligning the budget with decision readiness. 

Through structured macro and industry research, strengthened by targeted expert validation, teams gain clear evidence on market risk, competitive dynamics, and execution barriers before committing significant capital. 

This reduces premature large-scale consulting spend and ensures investment increases only when the opportunity proves strong enough.

If your team is evaluating a new market and needs clarity before committing:

→ Check out our Expert Solution here

To discuss how Expert Solution is typically applied in real market entry decisions, meet Hoang Le, our Expert Solution | Consulting Manager, who works closely with corporate and consulting teams on early-stage market assessments across the region.

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