How to Use Expert Networks for Emerging Market Due Diligence: A Practical Playbook for Deal Teams

Cross-border dealmaking is accelerating. Global cross-border M&A volume showed clear signs of recovery in 2025, with cross-border transactions accounting for over 32% of global deal volume in Q1 2025, up from 26% the prior year. In emerging markets, PE continues to attract attention due to robust demographic and economic tailwinds — Southeast Asia, Latin America, and parts of Africa stand out for their faster GDP growth, youthful populations, rising middle classes, and fast-growing key sectors.

But here's the problem: the standard due diligence playbook — pull the financials, run a few expert calls through your usual network, triangulate against sell-side research — breaks down in emerging markets. In emerging markets, the most difficult areas to navigate generally relate to the political environment, lack of transparency, bureaucracy and corruption. The traditional approach to operational due diligence is not enough to respond to the unique and specific challenges that exist.

This guide is for PE deal teams, corporate M&A professionals, and hedge fund analysts who are evaluating targets or market entries in Latin America, Southeast Asia, MENA, India, or Africa. It covers how to structure primary research — expert interviews, channel checks, and surveys — in markets where the rules are different, the data is thin, and the cost of bad information is measured in deal-killing write-downs.

The Five Challenges That Make Emerging Market Research Harder

Before you can design the right research approach, you need to understand exactly where emerging market due diligence diverges from what you're used to in developed markets. Here are the five challenges that will shape every decision you make.

1. Data Gaps and Poor Transparency

Many emerging markets lack comprehensive or digitized public records, making it difficult to verify business registration, financial statements, or legal histories. In Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries, for example, company registration databases may not always be up-to-date, and verifying the true ownership of a business can require in-depth local knowledge.

For investment professionals, this means you can't rely on desktop research as your starting point the way you would for a US or European target. In emerging markets, many businesses are family-owned and companies might have a poor track record or lack of audited information. Often the quality of information is questionable and must be supplemented with on-the-ground work and interviews. It is not unusual to find multiple sets of books.

What this means for your research design: Primary research isn't a "nice to have" that supplements your data room review. It is the data room. Expert calls, customer interviews, and channel checks often become your primary source of truth.

2. Regulatory Complexity and Rapid Change

Conducting due diligence in emerging economies presents additional challenges, including navigating unstructured regulatory environments, assessing political stability and potential corruption risks, and dealing with the potential unavailability of reliable information.

Regulatory frameworks in emerging markets shift quickly and enforcement is often uneven. A licensing requirement that existed six months ago may have been quietly changed by local decree. What's written on paper and what's enforced on the ground are often two different things. Localized legal expertise and regional law firms provide insights into nuanced interpretations of regulations and informal compliance expectations.

What this means for your research design: You need experts who aren't just familiar with the regulations — they need to have recently operated within them. Former executives who left a market three years ago won't cut it. Prioritize current operators, in-market distributors, and local advisors.

3. Corruption and Informal Economy Risk

Due diligence in emerging markets becomes significantly more complex where rapid growth potential is accompanied by political instability, regulatory ambiguity, and limited transparency. According to Transparency International, nearly 60% of firms expanding into emerging markets face corruption-related challenges during initial entry.

Siemens' $800 million settlement for corruption linked to emerging markets remains a cautionary tale. For deal teams, the risk isn't just direct exposure to corruption — it's the risk of acquiring a target whose revenue, supplier relationships, or government contracts depend on informal arrangements that won't survive post-acquisition scrutiny.

What this means for your research design: Your expert interviews need to probe beyond financial performance. You're looking for signals about how business is actually done — procurement processes, government relationship dependencies, channel partner practices.

4. Cultural Nuance and Relationship Dynamics

Understanding local business practices, negotiation styles, and expectations is crucial in markets like China, where relationships (guanxi) play a key role in business dealings. Similarly, across MENA, business relationships often hinge on personal trust built over years — dynamics that won't appear in any data room.

In places where the line between businesses and government interests is sometimes blurry, understanding the culture of the emerging market and establishing a presence in the local market is a fundamental part of the process.

What this means for your research design: Discussion guides written for Western-style expert calls often fall flat. Questions need to be adapted for cultural context, and you may need local moderators who understand how to build rapport and read between the lines of polite responses.

5. Political and Macroeconomic Volatility

Emerging markets can experience sudden policy changes or economic downturns that affect business viability. Argentina, for example, has faced economic crises that led to currency fluctuations and difficulties in repatriating profits. A PwC report reveals a striking divergence: while cross-border deal volume declined 12% globally, transactions in Latin America surged 23% year-over-year — underscoring today's central paradox that geopolitical friction is creating both unprecedented risks and uniquely concentrated opportunities.

What this means for your research design: Your research scope needs to explicitly include macro scenario planning. Don't just ask experts about the target — ask about the environment the target operates in, and how it would respond to foreseeable shocks.

Where Traditional Expert Networks Fall Short in Emerging Markets

If you're running a standard expert network engagement — brief your provider, get three to five expert profiles, schedule calls, run the conversations yourself — you'll hit specific limitations in emerging market due diligence that don't exist when you're evaluating a US SaaS company or a European industrial business.

Expert Supply Is Thin

The major expert networks (GLG, AlphaSights, Third Bridge, Guidepoint) have deep benches in the US and Western Europe. Their coverage in Southeast Asia, MENA, sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Latin America is significantly thinner. Networks are tapping into expertise from emerging markets, but this gives clients a truly global perspective only when those experts exist in the database. In practice, you'll often find that the available experts are diaspora professionals living in London or New York who left the market five or ten years ago — not current operators with ground-level visibility.

Compliance Gets Complicated

Compliance is a top priority for expert networks, as they must navigate complex regulatory landscapes. Many networks have strict vetting processes for experts to help prevent insider trading and other legal issues. But in emerging markets, the compliance challenge is different. It's less about insider trading (many targets are private) and more about FCPA exposure, sanctions risk, and the reliability of expert disclosures about conflicts of interest in markets where business relationships are opaque.

You Still Have to Do All the Work

Even with a good expert on the line, the traditional expert network model leaves the analytical heavy-lifting to you. Expert calls thrive on specificity. To get the best returns, avoid broad generalities — consider taking a direct, targeted approach rather than asking "is this market attractive?" In emerging markets, the preparation required to ask the right questions is significantly higher because you don't have the baseline knowledge that desk research provides in developed markets.

This is where the model starts to strain. When you're evaluating a target in Vietnam or Colombia, you often don't know enough to know what you don't know. You need a research partner who can scope the right questions, not just supply the expert.

A Practical Framework for Emerging Market Primary Research

Here's the playbook we recommend — whether you run this yourself, use a traditional expert network, or work with a done-for-you research provider. The key is structuring your research in phases, not running all your calls at once.

Phase 1: Landscape Orientation (Week 1)

Goal: Build the baseline understanding you'd normally get from desk research but can't in a low-data environment.

Who to talk to:

• 1–2 market-level experts: Consultants, trade association leaders, or former government officials who can give you a 30,000-foot view of the market, regulatory landscape, and competitive dynamics.
• 1 local advisor or in-market consultant: Someone who does business in the market daily and can flag risks, norms, and dynamics that won't appear in any report.

Key questions to answer:

• What are the real (not published) barriers to entry and operation in this market?
• How concentrated is the competitive landscape, and which players have informal advantages?
• What regulatory changes are imminent or rumoured?
• What's the typical go-to-market model in this market, and how does the target compare?

How to source these experts: In thin markets, you often can't rely on a single expert network's database. Use a combination of LinkedIn research (search for functional titles within the geography), industry conference speaker lists, local trade publications, and academic researchers at regional universities. If using an expert network, be explicit that you need in-market professionals, not diaspora.

Phase 2: Target-Specific Deep Dive (Weeks 2–3)

Goal: Validate (or challenge) the target's positioning, customer relationships, and revenue quality through the eyes of people who interact with the target directly.

Who to talk to:

• 3–5 customers of the target: Ideally across different segments or geographies within the market. Customer interviews are the single most valuable research asset in emerging markets, because they reveal things like payment behaviour, service quality, and switching intent that financials won't show.
• 2–3 competitors or adjacent players: Companies operating in the same market who can speak to the target's reputation, market share claims, and competitive moats.
• 1–2 channel partners or distributors: In many emerging markets, distribution is fragmented and relationship-dependent. Channel checks reveal how a target actually reaches its customers.

Key questions to answer:

• Do the target's customers corroborate its claims about market position and service quality?
• How sticky are the customer relationships, and what would cause switching?
• Is the target's competitive advantage structural, or dependent on relationships, pricing, or regulatory protection that could erode?
• How does the target's distribution compare to competitors, and are there channel risks?

How to source these participants: This is the hardest part. In many emerging markets, customers and competitors won't respond to cold outreach from an international research firm. Partnering with local investigators and leveraging on-the-ground intelligence can bridge the gap where digital records fail. A firm with established local networks can verify information through in-person visits and local contacts. You need local researchers who can make introductions, conduct interviews in the local language, and interpret responses in cultural context.

Phase 3: Risk and Scenario Validation (Week 4)

Goal: Stress-test your emerging thesis against the specific risks that matter in this market.

Who to talk to:

• 1–2 regulatory or legal experts: Local lawyers, former regulators, or compliance consultants who can assess the target's exposure to regulatory change, FCPA risk, or licensing vulnerabilities.
• 1 macro or political risk analyst: Someone who covers the country professionally and can help you scenario-plan around elections, policy shifts, or currency risk.

Key questions to answer:

• What's the realistic downside scenario for this market or sector in the next 3–5 years?
• Are there regulatory or political risks specific to the target's business model?
• How exposed is the target to currency risk, capital controls, or repatriation restrictions?
• What ESG risks exist that international LPs will scrutinize?

For lasting success, firms should adopt holistic due diligence frameworks combining local expertise, technological innovation, ESG principles, and continuous monitoring. Investment committees must treat due diligence as a living process that evolves with market dynamics rather than a static checklist completed during initial entry.

How to Adapt Discussion Guides for Emerging Market Contexts

The discussion guides you use for expert calls in developed markets won't work in emerging markets without significant adaptation. Here are the key adjustments:

Start Broader, Then Narrow

In developed markets, you can jump straight to specific questions because both parties share a baseline understanding of the market. In emerging markets, start with open-ended questions about how the market works, then narrow to target-specific questions. You often don't know the right specific questions until the expert teaches you how the market operates.

Ask About Informal Dynamics Explicitly

In many emerging markets, the informal economy, personal relationships, and unwritten rules matter as much as formal market structure. Build questions that probe these dynamics without putting the expert in an uncomfortable position. Instead of asking "Is there corruption in this market?", ask "How do procurement decisions typically get made in this sector?" or "What role do personal relationships play in winning contracts?"

Use Local Language Where Possible

Hiring investigators — or in this case, researchers — with local expertise and language skills can help uncover critical insights that might not be available through standard documentation. Culturally competent teams can better interpret business credibility and reputation. Conducting interviews in English with non-native speakers often results in surface-level answers. When possible, use local-language researchers or moderators and have findings translated and synthesized.

Calibrate for Politeness Bias

In many Asian and Latin American cultures, experts may avoid giving directly negative assessments, especially about specific companies. Build your discussion guide to use indirect techniques: ask for comparisons ("How does Company X compare to Company Y on delivery reliability?"), ask about hypothetical customers ("What would a typical customer's complaints be about this type of service?"), and listen for what's not said as much as what is.

How to Triangulate Findings When Data Is Sparse

In developed markets, you can validate expert call findings against public data, analyst reports, and company filings. In emerging markets, you often can't. A major challenge — particularly in financial due diligence — can be poor transparency or availability of data, particularly in emerging markets or in transactions where the target is relatively small.

Here's how to build conviction when you can't verify against hard data:

Use Expert Convergence as Your Primary Signal

When three independent experts — a customer, a competitor, and an industry consultant — all tell you the same thing about a target's market position or weakness, that convergence is your strongest signal. Design your research to create multiple independent angles on the same question.

Weight Proximity Over Prestige

A mid-level sales manager at a competing company in Jakarta will give you more reliable information about competitive dynamics in Indonesia than a senior partner at a global consulting firm who covered Southeast Asia five years ago. In the local market, local teams are a key factor to success as they will have relationships and connections that enable them to understand and navigate the country's regulatory environment.

Cross-Check Qualitative Findings Against Observable Proxies

When financial data is unreliable, look for proxy indicators that you can independently verify: hiring activity on local job boards, social media presence, customer reviews, physical location visits (via local researchers), trade show participation, patent filings, or import/export records. These won't replace financial due diligence, but they help you assess whether qualitative claims from expert calls pass the smell test.

Be Explicit About Confidence Levels

When presenting findings to your IC or deal committee, don't pretend you have the same level of certainty you'd have on a domestic deal. Flag which findings are high-confidence (corroborated by multiple sources), medium-confidence (single-source but credible), and low-confidence (plausible but unverified). This honesty makes your research more valuable, not less — research shows successful deals invest three times more hours in operational vetting, cultural alignment, and contingency scaffolding.

Region-Specific Considerations

While the framework above applies broadly, each emerging market region has its own quirks. Here's what to keep in mind.

Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand)

Expert supply is improving but still thin outside of Singapore-based professionals. Family-owned conglomerates dominate many sectors, making ownership structures opaque. B2B relationships are heavily relationship-driven. Asia remains at the heart of global cross-border dealmaking — according to Bain, APAC deal volume is projected to grow 12% year-over-year. Prioritize local-language interviews and in-country researchers.

Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile)

From Brazil's infrastructure privatization push to Mexico's nearshoring boom, emerging markets now demand a dual lens — one that identifies potential while mapping minefields. The nearshoring trend is generating significant PE interest in Mexican manufacturing and logistics. Expert sourcing is easier in Brazil and Mexico than in Andean markets. Be aware of complex tax structures and labour regulations that affect post-acquisition economics.

India

India has a relatively deep pool of available experts, but the market's sheer diversity — regulatory, cultural, and competitive dynamics vary dramatically by state — makes geographic specificity essential. Don't treat "India" as a single market in your research design. Source experts at the city and state level.

MENA (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey)

Government relationships are often intertwined with commercial success. Expert calls need to probe the degree to which a target's revenue depends on government contracts, subsidies, or regulatory protection. The Saudi Vision 2030 transformation is creating significant deal flow, but also rapidly changing regulatory requirements.

Sub-Saharan Africa (Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana)

The shallowest expert supply of any major emerging market region. You'll often need to build bespoke expert panels from scratch. Infrastructure limitations (power, logistics, telecoms) affect business viability in ways that won't appear in financial models. Political instability, regulatory volatility, and inconsistent governance frameworks present challenges. Successful PE investors are increasingly collaborating with local partners and developing region-specific strategies.

A Checklist for Your Next Emerging Market DD

Use this checklist to ensure your primary research covers the gaps that emerging market due diligence demands:

When to Use a Done-For-You Research Model

Running this kind of research in-house is possible, but it places extraordinary demands on deal teams. You need to source experts in unfamiliar markets, design culturally adapted discussion guides, conduct interviews (often in local languages), triangulate findings without reliable public data, and synthesize everything into an IC-ready deliverable — all under deal timelines.

The increasing complexity of due diligence means that if you're running on five angles, you're now developing five expertise criteria lists and evaluating approximately 50 potential advisors, costing valuable time.

This is exactly the scenario where a done-for-you primary research model makes sense. Instead of managing an expert network engagement yourself — sourcing experts, scheduling calls, moderating conversations, and synthesizing outputs — you brief a research team on what you need to know, and they deliver finished, actionable research. They bring the local networks, the language capability, the cultural context, and the synthesis expertise.

The math is straightforward: if your deal team's time is better spent evaluating the commercial opportunity and structuring the transaction, outsourcing the primary research execution — especially in markets where you lack local infrastructure — reduces both cost and risk.

Successful deals invest three times more hours in operational vetting, cultural alignment, and contingency planning. Winning requires building institutional knowledge that no database provides.

Key Takeaways

1. Primary research is the foundation, not the supplement. In emerging markets, expert interviews and channel checks often replace the desk research and public data that anchors developed-market DD.
2. Phase your research. Start with landscape orientation, then go target-specific, then validate risks. Don't run all your calls at once.
3. Source for proximity, not prestige. In-market operators matter more than diaspora experts or global consultants. Insist on current, local expertise.
4. Adapt your discussion guides. Cultural context, language, and indirect questioning techniques are not optional refinements — they're essential to getting honest, useful answers.
5. Triangulate aggressively. When data is sparse, convergence across independent sources is your strongest signal. Design your research to create multiple angles on the same question.
6. Be honest about confidence levels. Flagging uncertainty makes your research more credible with investment committees, not less.
7. Consider the done-for-you model. Emerging market DD demands local networks, cultural fluency, and synthesis expertise that most deal teams don't have in-house. A research partner who handles the entire process end-to-end can deliver better outputs, faster.