How Many Expert Interviews Should You Conduct for M&A and New Business Development?
Warren Buffett, the "Oracle of Omaha," follows one cardinal rule: "Never lose money."
The core strategy for upholding this principle is portfolio diversification—"Don't put all your eggs in one basket."
This strategy applies equally to M&A projects involving hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. Yet surprisingly, many companies make critical decisions relying on insights from just a handful of experts.
According to M&A professionals, most unexpected issues discovered post-acquisition stem from information gaps—insights that could have been obtained from the right people but were missed.
Failed M&A deals can result in losses in the hundreds of millions, or even billions. This high-stakes reality underscores the critical importance of conducting broad interviews to meticulously verify information and insights.
This article examines 4 common mistakes made when initiating Expert Interviews for M&A projects and explores why comprehensive expert interviews are essential.
We also introduce an Expert Network Service (ENS) that makes extensive expert interviews affordable by addressing the prohibitive cost structure of traditional ENS platforms.
4 Common Mistakes in Expert Selection for Interviews
1️⃣ Preferring Only Experts from Specific Companies
For example, when interviewing "semiconductor" experts, many focus exclusively on experts from Korean tech giants like Samsung or SK Hynix.
However, the semiconductor industry comprises a massive and complex Value Chain.
This extensive Value Chain includes numerous players across wafers and materials, equipment, design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, and finished products.
Limiting interviews to specific company alumni creates a manufacturing-centric bias and increases the risk of overlooking supply chain risks or new technology transfer pathways in acquisition and investment decisions.
For instance, if technology innovation is already emerging at the equipment or materials stage, evaluating the market solely from a manufacturing perspective means missing critical opportunities.
For Expert Interviews supporting M&A or new market entry, you must build a diverse expert portfolio covering the entire Value Chain.
Even within a single industry, balancing "vertical depth (experience within one company)" and "horizontal breadth (perspective across multiple stages)" is crucial.
2️⃣ Preferring Only Senior-Level Experts
Similarly, limiting interviews to C-level executives carries significant risk.
While C-level executives oversee organizational strategy and decision-making, they often lack firsthand knowledge of the detailed changes and operational issues occurring on the ground.
For example, a manufacturing company's CEO or CTO can discuss the "need for process innovation," but which equipment creates bottlenecks or which customer requirements are driving new specifications falls within the domain of field engineers or sales managers.
Interviewing only executives provides strategic direction but may miss 'strategy execution-level risks' essential for M&A evaluation.
Particularly in technology-driven industries, meaningful gaps exist between C-level strategic statements and operational realities.
Therefore, including field practitioners with hands-on experience alongside senior executives is critical for accurate information gathering.
3️⃣ Seeking Only Strategic Planning Department Alumni
When conducting Expert Interviews for M&A, many prioritize strategic planning, business development, or consulting executives—individuals with "strategic perspectives."
These experts provide valuable macroscopic insights into industry structure and competitive dynamics, making them useful in early M&A evaluation stages.
However, this perspective alone struggles to capture market reactions, customer demand shifts, and the on-the-ground sentiment of the market.
Field sales teams or customer-facing department veterans often better understand "what's actually happening in the market."
Information about pricing negotiation structures, customer decision-making processes, and subtle supply chain dynamics is difficult to obtain from strategic planning departments.
For M&A Due Diligence Expert Interviews, you need both strategic vision and field-level insights.
Rather than limiting to specific departments, balance experts across sales, marketing, production, quality control, customer support, and other functions.
Broadening the functional spectrum makes interview data more multidimensional and enables realistic Post-Merger Integration (PMI) strategy design.
4️⃣ Seeking Only Current Employees
When selecting M&A interview candidates, current employees naturally take priority. Active employment seemingly guarantees "latest information" and "credibility."
However, actual interviews reveal that research based solely on current employees is inherently limited in its depth and diversity.
Current employees are still bound by their organization's interests, making it difficult to freely discuss specific figures or decision-making contexts due to non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) or internal regulations. Consequently, interview content often stays close to official positions.
In contrast, experts who have recently left the company—or "recent alumni"—can offer insights with a level of candor that current employees often cannot.
Having experienced the industry's internal structure and organizational culture until recently, they maintain field-level awareness while offering freer perspectives.
Therefore, interviewing relatively recent alumni often yields better insights and information than exclusively interviewing current employees.
Essential Condition for Successful M&A: Building a Diverse Expert Portfolio
As examined above, one or two expert opinions are insufficient for deep industry understanding. This is especially true in industries with long supply chains and complex stakeholder relationships like semiconductors or electronic materials.
Each stakeholder's perspective on the market differs completely—chip makers, OSATs (packaging/testing companies), material vendors, and customers.
For example, chip makers prioritize material quality and yield stability, while customers may emphasize price competitiveness and delivery risk.
Therefore, determining "which items are promising?" or "which markets and technologies should we enter?" requires synthesizing diverse player perspectives.
Interestingly, interviewing multiple experts often reveals contradictory yet equally valid viewpoints.
For instance, an incumbent vendor might say "that company has poor quality," while a procurement manager evaluates "their price might be slightly lower, but their attitude and responsiveness are far superior."
Neither is wrong—they're viewing the market from different positions.
Cross-referencing supplier and customer perspectives, C-level and practitioner views, domestic and international player insights provides a more multidimensional understanding of the market's structure and trends.
Expert interviews are not about finding a single "right answer," but about weaving together multiple perspectives. Grasping this distinction makes it clear how a diverse expert portfolio increases M&A success rates.
The Ideal Portfolio Meets Reality's Barrier: The 'Cost' Problem
Practitioners reading this far likely ask themselves:
"This makes sense, but wouldn't interviewing 10+ experts be expensive?"
Traditional Expert Network Services (ENS) typically require retainer deposits of over KRW 100 million (approx. $75,000 USD) and 'hourly-based' high-cost billing structures.
This represents the biggest barrier to portfolio strategies involving brief meetings with diverse experts.
It's like wanting to diversify with small investments but being forced to buy stocks in 100-share lots.
Budget constraints ultimately force "concentrated investment" in a few "most impressive-looking" experts—reluctantly.
Brainconnect AI offers the solution that makes this 'expert portfolio' strategy a reality.
1) Cost Structure Innovation: '20-Minute Billing' Minimizes Diversification Burden
Brainconnect AI breaks industry conventions by introducing '20-minute billing'—a rational pricing structure. This enables efficient cross-verification of multiple experts' core opinions without unnecessary costs.
Pricing is more reasonable than traditional global ENS, allowing you to meet 2-3x more experts with the same budget, building robust and highly credible portfolios.
2) Customized Services: Diverse Formats Matching Your Objectives
From "short consultations" for quick core verification to "deep research" diving into specific topics, we offer various service formats tailored to your M&A stage and objectives, maximizing investment efficiency.
3) Verified Network: Lower Costs, Maintained Quality
Brainconnect AI maintains a verified expert network based on M&A consulting and global ENS operational experience.
Covering 47 countries worldwide, all industries from retail to IT/platforms and materials/chemicals, from C-level to manager-level practitioners capable of operational discussions—lowering costs while maintaining top portfolio quality.
Secure Multidimensional Insights Through Brainconnect AI
Brainconnect AI transforms M&A diligence costs from a simple business expense into a high-return investment.
M&A is an investment in future value. Every successful investment begins with thorough risk management and smart diversification.
You no longer need to accept the risk of "concentrated investment"—betting your company's fate on one or two opinions.
Now, leverage cost-effective platforms like Brainconnect AI to build the perfect 'expert portfolio' that increases success rates for M&A or new business development projects.