VIDEO: LEK Consulting's Ken Chen

The key consideration when conducting due diligence on a consumer opportunity is still the brand and whether it resonates with potential buyers. This assessment can be made even for companies that have yet to enter the China market because their products are often available via Alibaba Group's Taobao C2C e-commerce platform.

"What we do is check the consumer reaction to the product online and that will give us initial feedback of its potential in China," Chen said. "We do much more rigorous analysis after that - formal consumer testing, analyzing the channels they should use, and so forth."

The challenge LEK faces has eased somewhat with greater availability of relevant data in China, although usability is still contingent on the firm ensuring the numbers are accurate.

"Before we used to use brute force, conducting 80-100 interviews to build up data from bottom up, but now some data is available for purchase," Chen explained. "We use primary interviews much more strategically but we still need anywhere from 30-50 interviews to confirm data sources. "

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