Define the decision that must follow the workshop
Start with the choice leadership expects to make. It may be whether to enter a market, which customer segment to test, whether to appoint a distributor, how much to invest in a pilot or whether an existing client justifies local capacity. A workshop without a defined decision usually produces a broad list of interesting questions and no basis for action.
Write the decision in one sentence and name the person accountable for it. Then set the point at which that decision is required. Timing changes the appropriate depth of research and prevents an urgent commercial question from turning into an indefinite strategic exercise.
Put current evidence and assumptions on separate pages
Collect what the company already knows: customer enquiries, sales history, lost deals, partner conversations, product constraints, pricing, delivery costs and previous market studies. Label the source and date. A strong internal opinion is useful context, but it should not be recorded as verified demand.
Next, list the assumptions behind the proposed expansion. These may concern customer need, willingness to pay, access to decision-makers, channel performance, regulatory feasibility or the team's ability to deliver locally. The research brief should test the assumptions that could change the decision, not confirm every belief in the room.
Choose the customer and problem before sizing the market
A country can contain several markets with different buyers, budgets and purchase routes. Define the first customer group in operational terms: organisation type, role in the buying process, trigger, current alternative and reason to consider change. If the group cannot be described clearly, a headline market-size figure will create confidence without focus.
Map the customer problem to the offer that can be delivered now. Separate features that require translation, pricing adaptation or local support from changes that would create a different product. This gives researchers a proposition to test and commercial teams a boundary they can explain.
Record constraints before proposing routes to market
Confirm budget, timing, margin requirements, languages, delivery capacity, data handling, travel, partner dependence and any legal or sector questions that require qualified advice. A route that looks attractive in a market report may be unusable if the company cannot support it or if the economics fail after local costs.
Distinguish fixed constraints from preferences. Leadership may prefer direct sales but remain open to a distributor if access costs are too high. Recording that distinction allows research to compare realistic routes instead of defending a preferred answer.
Agree the evidence threshold for the next commitment
Define what would support proceed, revise or stop. The evidence might include a reachable customer segment, a viable price range, qualified interviews, a credible partner shortlist, acceptable delivery economics or a paid pilot. Different decisions need different thresholds; general market attractiveness is not enough to justify every form of entry.
Include disconfirming evidence. If customer access depends on one relationship, the margin disappears after local service costs or the product needs an unplanned certification path, leadership should see that finding early. A useful workshop protects the company from investing in a story that evidence no longer supports.
Turn the discussion into a research and action brief
End with named questions, sources, owners, deadlines and outputs. Secondary data may compare demand and competition; customer interviews can test the problem and buying process; partner conversations can examine reach and responsibilities; specialist advisers can resolve legal, tax or technical dependencies.
Sequence the work around uncertainty. Test the assumption most likely to stop the project before commissioning a complete launch plan. The final brief should state which decision each workstream informs and how findings will be reviewed together.
How ICON IMAGE runs market entry discovery
ICON IMAGE facilitates a focused discovery workshop with leadership and relevant commercial, product and delivery owners. We clarify the decision, organise current evidence, identify material assumptions, define the first customer and proposition, and convert the discussion into a staged research plan.
The starting material can be concise: the proposed market, commercial objective, current evidence, offer, constraints, budget range and decision date. The purpose is to make subsequent research smaller, sharper and directly useful to the people who must approve the next step.
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