Market entry cases: the four questions, in the order that matters
Most candidates answer whether the market is attractive and stop. Market entry cases are decided on whether the client can win in it and whether the money has a better home. The order, a worked dialogue, and a drill.
- Attractiveness is table stakes. If the market were unattractive there would be no case, so what decides it is whether this client can win in it.
- Cover all four areas, but lead with something true about this client rather than reciting them as a list.
- A market size is not an answer. Size, times the share you could defend, times the margin, against the investment. Four numbers and you can commit.
- Name the entry mode in the recommendation. Build, buy or partner changes the capital, the speed and the risk.
On this page
A market entry case asks whether a client should go into a market it is not in today. Every candidate knows the four areas to cover: the market, the money, whether we can pull it off, and how we would go in. Almost every candidate then covers them in that order and runs out of time somewhere in the third.
That is the wrong order, because it is not where these cases are decided. A market being large and growing is table stakes. If it were unattractive there would be no case. The interesting question, and the one the interviewer is usually testing, is whether this particular client has any right to win in it.
The four questions, and which one carries the weight
Is the market worth entering? Size, growth, structure, how profitable the incumbents are. Necessary, rarely decisive. Ten minutes here is eight minutes too many.
Can we win in it? What the client has that a new entrant would need, and what the incumbents will do when we arrive. This is where the case usually turns.
Is it worth more than the alternative? Entry consumes capital and management attention that could go somewhere else. A positive return is not the bar. Beating the next best use of the same money is.
How would we go in? Build, buy or partner, and at what pace. This decides the recommendation's shape, not its direction.
Cover all four in your opening so the interviewer knows you see the whole board, then declare where you want to spend the time and why. But lead with something true about this client rather than reciting the four as a list. "I will cover attractiveness, returns and entry mode, and I expect this to turn on whether we can reach the buyer, because in this category the buyer is a builder or a retail floor" does the same job and could not be handed in for a different case. That is the name every bucket, then prioritize one move, and the difference between a structure and a checklist is which half you say first.
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Sizing is a step, not the answer
Market entry cases usually contain a sizing somewhere. Candidates sometimes treat arriving at the market size as arriving at the answer, present the number with relief, and wait.
The number only matters relative to something. A market worth 400 million a year is enormous for a business doing 50 million and a rounding error for one doing 4 billion. Before you present a size, know what you are comparing it to: the client's current revenue, the investment required, or the profit pool rather than the revenue pool. The tree-first sizing method applies unchanged. What changes is that you owe a so-what immediately after the total.
The sharper version is to size the share you could plausibly take, not the market. Market size times a defensible share, times margin, against the investment. That is three extra multiplications and it turns a fact into a recommendation.
What this sounds like
The candidate never presented the 4 billion as an achievement. Every number was immediately converted into what it would be worth to the client, which is what let the case end with a recommendation instead of a summary.
The number that turns it into a recommendation
The chain is short and you should be able to run it in your head: market size, times the share you could defend, times the margin you would earn, against the money you would spend. Four numbers.
If you can produce those four, you can say yes or no and defend it. If you produce only the first, you can say the market is big, which the interviewer already knew when they wrote the case.
Be honest about the share. A new entrant taking 10 percent of an established market in three years is a claim, not an assumption, and interviewers notice when it appears without justification. Two percent with a reason beats ten percent without one.
Where candidates lose these
Front-loading attractiveness. Ten minutes on market size and growth, then a rushed two minutes on capabilities, then no recommendation.
Forgetting the incumbents have a move. Entry analyses that assume competitors stand still are a common substantive gap. Someone with a factory, a sales force and a share to protect will respond, and price is the cheapest response available to them.
Treating capabilities as a list. "Do we have the brand, the capital, the distribution" answered as three yes-or-no boxes is not analysis. Which of them is actually scarce for this client in this market, and what happens if it is missing?
Skipping the alternative. A market entry that returns 8 percent is a bad idea if the client's existing business returns 20. The question is never "is this positive," it is "is this the best use of this money."
No entry mode. Build, buy or partner changes the capital, the speed and the risk. A recommendation to enter that does not say how is half a recommendation.
Drill this
Twelve minutes, out loud.
- Pick a company you know and a country or segment it is not in. A German discount grocer in Japan, a US streaming service in India, a regional bank in a neighboring country.
- Minutes 1 to 3: name all four questions and declare which one you will spend the time on, with a reason drawn from what you know about that client.
- Minutes 4 to 7: go three levels deep on can-we-win. Name the specific scarce capability, not the category.
- Minutes 8 to 10: invent a market size, a defensible share, a margin and an investment. Say the chain out loud and land on a number the decision can rest on.
- Minutes 11 to 12: give a yes, a no or a conditional, and name the one fact that would flip it.
Do the same client twice across two days with a different scarce capability each time. It breaks the habit of reciting the four areas and forces the reasoning that actually earns the offer.
Frequently asked questions
Is market entry the same as a new product case?
The four questions are the same and the emphasis moves. A new product in a market you already serve makes route to market and brand mostly solved and puts the weight on product fit and cannibalization. A new market with an existing product inverts that. Ask which one you are in before structuring.
How much time should I spend on market sizing?
As little as the case allows, and never without a so-what. If the interviewer hands you the size, take it and move to share. If they ask you to size it, size it cleanly and then immediately convert it into the profit pool and the share you could take.
Do I need to name an entry mode if the interviewer never raises it?
Yes, in the recommendation, in one sentence. Build, buy or partner is the difference between a 30 million commitment and a distribution agreement, and choosing it shows you understood that entry is a spending decision.
What if the numbers say no?
Say no. Recommending against entry with a clear number behind it scores better than a forced yes, and cases are often built so that the honest answer is no or conditional. What loses points is refusing to commit either way.
The interviewer says the market is growing 15 percent. Does that change anything?
Less than it feels like. Fast growth attracts entrants, so it often means more competitors by the time you arrive, not an easier share. Use it on the profit pool in year five rather than on the share you can win in year one, and say that distinction out loud.
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