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By Joash Boyton, founder, owner and CEO of Acquiry
Sponsored educational article by Acquiry.
Choose between a sector specialist and a generalist buy side adviser by defining the understanding your acquisition brief requires, then testing how each prospective team applies that understanding. A narrow sector label does not establish depth, and broad coverage does not establish superficiality. The relevant question is whether the people delivering the assignment can identify suitable businesses, challenge misleading similarities and recognise when a specialist must investigate further.
For a tightly defined target profile, detailed commercial knowledge of a particular workflow or business model may be essential. For a capability search that crosses conventional sector boundaries, broader research may be valuable. A combined model may fit when the buyer needs breadth during mapping and depth during qualification. This guide provides a way to compare those configurations without relying on unsupported rankings, long sector lists or assumptions about an adviser's transaction record.
Write the acquisition objective before naming a sector. Explain what the buyer wants to add and why. The objective might concern a customer workflow, a distribution route, a permission-dependent activity or a particular kind of intellectual property. A conventional industry category may help organise research, but it should not replace a description of the capability the buyer needs.
Next, identify which misunderstandings would cause the team to pursue the wrong companies. For a software search, the team may need to distinguish a repeatable product from a service-intensive offering. For a payments search, it may need to recognise that a commercial description leaves permission questions unresolved. For a media search, it may need to separate audience reach from the rights and relationships relevant to the buyer's intended use.
These are examples of commercial screening questions, not technical or legal conclusions about any target. Their purpose is to reveal the knowledge required to design a useful search. Ask the buyer's operating specialists to identify the few distinctions that genuinely change fit. Those distinctions become the basis for evaluating an adviser's depth, rather than asking whether the firm knows a broadly labelled sector.
Depth means being able to explain the important distinctions in the buyer's brief and investigate them with suitable evidence. It includes knowing which questions cannot be answered from public descriptions. A provider focused on a narrow industry may have that depth, but the label alone does not demonstrate it. Ask the delivery team to apply its reasoning to a specific authorised scenario.
Narrowness describes the boundaries of coverage. It may help focus research, or it may exclude adjacent businesses that serve the same strategic purpose. A buyer should examine whether those boundaries match its own requirements. If the acquisition objective is tied to a particular regulated activity, a narrow focus may be helpful. If the objective is a workflow capability available through several business models, a narrow category could be too restrictive.
Avoid treating specialisation as a personality trait of the whole firm. One team member may have relevant operating knowledge while another performs the research. Identify how that knowledge enters the actual assignment. Ask who reviews the target criteria, who challenges the findings and who joins qualification discussions. The proposed workflow matters as much as the firm's chosen description of itself.
Breadth is useful when the buyer needs to explore several plausible ways to obtain a capability. It can support comparisons across different business models or adjacent markets. The adviser still needs a disciplined method for deciding what belongs in the search. A broad provider should not use its coverage as a reason to present loosely related companies without a clear rationale.
Ask how a prospective generalist would organise unfamiliar territory. Which questions would it ask the buyer's specialists? Which primary information would it seek? How would it identify gaps in its understanding? A thoughtful answer should describe a learning process with explicit review points. It should not imply that all sectors can be screened using identical fields and assumptions.
Also ask where the provider would stop. A generalist can contribute research and owner access while bringing in a specialist for a particular issue. The buyer should know when that handover occurs and what the specialist is expected to determine. Breadth becomes useful when it is governed by a clear brief and an honest understanding of the limits of the initial screen.
Keep published coverage, demonstrated understanding and relevant experience in separate fields. Published coverage shows that a provider describes work in a sector. Demonstrated understanding comes from how the proposed team analyses the buyer's questions. Relevant experience concerns work actually performed and appropriately evidenced. None should be silently substituted for another.
A sector webpage may help the buyer identify a firm worth interviewing, but it does not establish a current mandate, a completed transaction or the involvement of the particular team proposed. A thoughtful sample may demonstrate a method without proving an extensive track record. A reference may support experience in one kind of assignment without establishing suitability for every target in the same industry.
This separation improves the comparison. The buyer can value a capable research method even when historical evidence is limited, provided it understands the risk and scope. It can also question whether a substantial claimed history is relevant to its current brief. The objective is to make an appointment on evidence, not to require every provider to present the same organisational model or credentials.
Ask prospective advisers to move through a sequence of questions about a generic target profile. Begin with what the business does for its customer. Then ask who uses the offering, who decides to purchase, what alternatives exist and why the business might fit the buyer. Finally, ask which facts would disprove the apparent fit and what requires specialist verification.
The sequence reveals whether the adviser can move beyond vocabulary. Familiarity with sector terminology may help a conversation, but the buyer needs reasoning that affects target selection. Listen for distinctions between user and purchaser, product and service, a reported metric and the evidence behind it. The provider should be able to connect those distinctions to a practical research or qualification step.
Do not expect every question to be answered immediately. A useful response may identify missing information and explain how it would be obtained. The test is whether the uncertainty is specific and actionable. A vague promise to conduct diligence later does not show how the adviser will avoid pursuing unsuitable companies during the earlier search stages.
For a hypothetical software search, give the adviser a generic description of a product used in a recurring customer workflow. Ask what it would investigate before treating that business as a suitable bolt-on. The answer should connect the workflow to the buyer's objective and identify relevant questions about customers, implementation, support and dependencies. It should not jump directly to a valuation multiple.
Then vary one fact. Suppose the software requires substantial recurring manual work by the supplier, or the buyer's intended customer group uses a different workflow. Ask how that changes the target criteria. The point is not that either fact automatically makes the company unattractive. It is whether the adviser recognises the distinction and can explain what evidence the buyer needs next.
A specialist might answer from established domain knowledge. A generalist might ask the right operating specialist to help refine the screen. Either approach could be appropriate. Compare the clarity of the resulting search criteria and the proposed responsibility for resolving the issue, rather than rewarding whichever provider uses more technical language in the interview.
For a hypothetical fintech search, describe the intended commercial activity and ask what the adviser needs to know before researching targets. A useful answer should identify questions about the relevant entity, jurisdiction, permissions and counterparties. It should also state which conclusions require qualified regulatory or legal review. This is a test of issue recognition and routing, not a request for legal advice in a sales meeting.
Change the scenario so that a target's public description appears relevant but the buyer's intended activity differs from the activity described. Ask whether the adviser would include the company, exclude it or mark it for further investigation. The reasoning should preserve the distinction between an apparent commercial fit and a verified ability to support the buyer's plan.
Be cautious of either extreme: treating every permission question as irrelevant until late diligence, or presenting a confident legal conclusion without the facts and appropriate expertise. The buyer needs a search partner that can identify consequential questions early and connect them with the right specialist. That capability can exist in a specialist or a carefully organised generalist team.
For a hypothetical media search, describe a business with an audience that appears relevant to the buyer. Ask the adviser what it would need to understand before treating the audience as a strategic asset the buyer could use. Useful questions concern the channels through which people are reached, the relationship with those people, the revenue model and the rights required for the proposed use.
Then change the buyer's objective. One buyer may want a continuing publishing business; another may want a particular content capability or customer channel. Ask whether the same target profile serves both. The adviser should explain what changes in the research brief rather than assuming that an attractive audience supports every acquisition rationale.
Again, legal rights require appropriate review. The commercial selection test is whether the adviser notices that traffic or subscriber figures do not answer every question about use, continuity or ownership. A provider that identifies the missing question has contributed something useful even before the specialist determines the answer. That is a more practical measure of understanding than a list of media categories.
Ask how the adviser would search for the desired capability outside the most obvious category. An adjacent business may solve the same customer problem using a different model, or it may merely share fashionable terminology. The provider should be able to explain which characteristics remain essential when the search expands and which can vary.
Use a boundary exercise. Ask for the reasons to include a business just outside the sector definition and exclude one that clearly sits inside it. The first tests whether the adviser can recognise strategic relevance beyond labels. The second tests whether it can resist superficial similarity. The buyer should review both decisions with its operating team before changing the search scope.
Set a rule for expansion. Adjacent opportunities should be presented with an explanation of the original objective they serve, the new assumptions they introduce and the specialist questions they create. The buyer then decides whether to authorise that branch of research. This preserves useful breadth without allowing the brief to drift into a collection of interesting but unrelated companies.
A specialist-led configuration may fit when the search depends on a small number of domain distinctions and the target universe is tightly bounded. Ask whether the specialist has the research capacity and owner-approach process the assignment requires. Detailed knowledge should not be assumed to include every other component of origination. Identify any support needed to complete the workflow.
A generalist-led configuration may fit when the acquisition objective can be expressed through clear criteria and the buyer already has strong internal domain expertise. Ask how that expertise will be used during research and qualification. The buyer should not expect the provider to infer undocumented operating constraints. Establish review points where internal specialists can challenge the work before outreach broadens.
A combined configuration may fit when the early search spans several categories but later qualification requires depth. Define the lead adviser, the specialist contribution and the handover conditions. Avoid creating an arrangement in which each party assumes another owns the difficult questions. The buyer should be able to explain the configuration in terms of responsibilities and outputs, not merely the number of firms involved.
Identify the people who will translate the brief, conduct research, approve findings and speak with owners. Ask how senior review works and what triggers escalation. A provider may have relevant expertise at firm level without assigning it to the buyer's work. The selection decision should be based on the proposed delivery arrangement and any conditions needed to make it credible.
Give the likely delivery lead an opportunity to explain the brief. Ask which part they find most uncertain and which part they would test first. Compare that answer with the proposal. Differences may be easy to resolve, but they should be addressed before appointment. A polished proposal is less useful if the team responsible for execution interprets the objective differently.
Also examine continuity. If the person with the relevant sector knowledge becomes unavailable, how will the assignment be supported? The answer need not promise that staff will never change. It should explain the records, review process and replacement capability needed to preserve the reasoning behind the target criteria and owner conversations.
A buyer may reasonably want to understand relevant experience, but that does not justify asking a provider to reveal private client or target information. Request authorised references, public material that genuinely supports the claimed role, or fictional examples of the working method. Respect a provider's confidentiality obligations while remaining clear about what evidence is still missing.
When reviewing a claimed example, ask what the firm actually did. Research, introduction, lead advice, diligence coordination and execution support are different contributions. A successful transaction involving a company mentioned in a report does not establish the provider's role. Record the scope supported by the evidence and avoid expanding it into a broader credential.
If evidence cannot be provided, decide whether a bounded initial scope or an additional capability test would address the uncertainty. Do not force a confident conclusion either way. The buyer can distinguish an unverified claim from a disproved claim and choose what level of uncertainty is acceptable for the specific assignment.
Use one sheet per prospective delivery configuration. Keep narrative evidence alongside the selection decision so the buyer can revisit the reasoning if the brief changes. The worksheet should make important differences visible rather than compressing all capabilities into a total score.
List the distinctions the search must get right, such as customer workflow, purchasing decision, operating model or rights-dependent use. For each, identify why it changes fit and who on the buyer's side can validate the criterion. This prevents the evaluation from becoming a general test of industry knowledge unrelated to the acquisition objective.
Record the provider's relevant public descriptions and the date reviewed. Treat them as a statement of focus or offered work. Do not enter transaction counts, client associations or local capabilities unless appropriately supported. The purpose of this field is to establish the starting point for discussion, not to award points for the length of a sector list.
Summarise the provider's reasoning in the scenario exercise. Which useful distinctions did it make? Which assumptions did it challenge? Which specialist questions did it identify? Include an example of how that reasoning changed a target inclusion or exclusion decision. This field should show practical understanding rather than the interviewer's impression of confidence.
Record the claimed role, the evidence available and its limitations. If a reference is used, note the type of work it supports without circulating private details unnecessarily. Separate evidence about the firm from evidence about the proposed delivery team. The buyer can then judge relevance to this assignment instead of relying on a general reputation label.
Identify which neighbouring categories the team can research and why they might serve the same buyer objective. Record the rule for expanding beyond the initial sector. Include who authorises the change and what new specialist input it would require. This field helps evaluate whether breadth is useful strategic flexibility or simply an unbounded list of possibilities.
Name the questions reserved for technical, legal, accounting or other specialist review. Record when those questions need answers and who appoints the specialist. The provider should explain how initial research feeds the review without presenting screening observations as final conclusions. This is particularly important where a commercial description depends on permissions or rights.
Identify the assigned people, the review process and the handover format. Ask whether the proposed workload is compatible with the assignment and how changes will be handled. The buyer needs a credible delivery arrangement, not an unsupported service-level promise. Record any condition that must be resolved before the team begins external contact.
State whether the configuration is suitable, suitable subject to conditions or not suitable for the defined scope. Explain the reason in terms of the buyer's requirements. List the evidence still needed and the person responsible for obtaining it. A clear conditional decision is more useful than an artificial numerical ranking that hides a critical gap.
Before appointment, hold a bounded calibration exercise using fictional company descriptions. Give every prospective delivery team the same buyer objective and ask it to classify the examples as apparent fit, apparent mismatch or insufficient evidence. Require a short reason and the next question for each decision. The exercise tests how knowledge changes the search, rather than whether the adviser can produce an impressive general discussion.
Suppose the hypothetical buyer wants a repeatable product capability that complements an existing customer workflow. The first fictional description concerns a focused software product. The second describes a service business with an internal tool. The third describes a data offering used in the same workflow. None should be accepted or rejected solely because of its category. Ask the adviser to identify what each could contribute and which facts would determine whether it meets the buyer's requirement.
For the software product, the team might investigate the product's actual role, customer fit and implementation requirements. For the service business, it might ask whether the internal tool is separable from the service and whether the buyer wants that operating model. For the data offering, it might identify questions about the intended use, contractual rights and continuity. These are proposed questions, not conclusions about the fictional businesses or universal screening rules.
Next, reveal a new fact for each description. The software product may serve a different decision-maker from the buyer's existing product. The service business may have documented a repeatable component that could matter to the acquisition thesis. The data offering may require a contractual review before the buyer can assess its intended use. Ask the provider to revise its classification and explain why the new fact matters.
The revisions are the useful part of the exercise. A specialist may demonstrate depth by identifying a subtle workflow mismatch. A generalist may demonstrate breadth by recognising a relevant capability outside the initial category. Either may fail if it refuses to update an early view or treats an unresolved specialist question as settled. Record the reasoning rather than counting how many examples the adviser places in the preferred category.
Finish by asking the provider to propose an improved brief. Which criterion should be expressed more precisely? Which feature belongs as a preference rather than a requirement? Which evidence should be collected before owner contact, and which can reasonably wait for an authorised discussion? The output should connect the classification exercise to a search design the buyer could actually commission.
Ask the likely delivery lead to return a short reverse brief after the calibration session. It should state the acquisition objective, the meaningful sector boundaries, the required commercial distinctions and the proposed specialist interfaces. Include one example of an attractive-looking company that would be excluded and one adjacent company that could deserve investigation. The examples should remain fictional or use only material authorised for this purpose.
Review the reverse brief with the buyer's operating team. If the team disagrees, identify whether the problem is an unclear buyer objective, an unsupported provider assumption or a genuine strategic choice. Resolve that issue before treating the appointment as ready. The reverse brief gives both sides a practical reference for later research reviews and reduces reliance on everyone remembering the interview in the same way.
This process should remain proportionate. It is a selection and commissioning exercise, not an unpaid full market study. Agree the scope of any work requested from prospective providers. The buyer's aim is to establish whether the delivery configuration can translate the objective into sound target decisions, with enough evidence to make an informed appointment.
Consider a hypothetical buyer seeking software that supports a specific operational workflow. The buyer has a strong internal product team, but limited capacity to research companies and coordinate owner contact. A prospective sector specialist demonstrates detailed understanding of the workflow but proposes a narrow target universe. A prospective generalist offers a broader mapping process and asks to involve the buyer's product lead in reviewing the criteria.
The buyer should test whether the specialist's narrower universe reflects a genuine strategic boundary or an unnecessary sector convention. It should also test whether the generalist can use the product lead's input consistently rather than relying on the buyer to correct every research note. The answer may be a specialist-led search, a generalist-led search with structured review or a combined arrangement.
Now consider a second hypothetical buyer whose intended activity depends on permissions that its own team does not yet understand. A generalist's broad research capacity alone does not resolve that gap. The buyer needs an appropriate specialist to help define the activity and questions before treating companies as suitable. The sourcing adviser can still be valuable, but the initial configuration should reflect the unresolved knowledge requirement.
The two examples lead to different appointments because the buyers have different internal capabilities and decision risks. They do not establish that specialists or generalists are categorically better. The selection method asks where depth is essential, where breadth adds value and who will provide the missing understanding at the point it is needed.
Acquiry supports buy-side acquisition origination through target definition, company research, owner approaches and qualification. Its published software coverage includes vertical SaaS, workflow software and other software categories. Its fintech approach addresses licence type, jurisdiction and permissions in target screening, while its media coverage considers audience, revenue diversity, rights and traffic resilience.
These areas can be relevant to a buyer whose search crosses digital business models. The engagement discussion should still identify the commercial distinctions that matter to the buyer's brief and the specialists required for legal, technical or regulatory conclusions. Sector coverage should not be treated as a claim that every opportunity has been investigated or that the firm has performed a particular transaction.
A buyer with strong internal coverage and established owner relationships may need only limited external support. A buyer with an unresolved specialist question may need to settle that question before commissioning a broad search. The appropriate role follows the actual gap. Evaluating the delivery method and responsibility map remains more useful than choosing an adviser solely because its sector list resembles the target profile.
A specialist may be well suited, but the buyer should test the relevant understanding and delivery process. A narrow label does not establish research discipline, owner access or capacity. Ask the proposed team to explain the distinctions that change fit and demonstrate how those distinctions enter the search. If the buyer already has substantial domain expertise, a different configuration may also work. The decision should follow the evidence and the retained responsibilities.
That depends on the knowledge required, the provider's method and the specialist support available. Ask what must be understood before research begins and what can be learned through controlled investigation. Do not defer a critical misunderstanding until after broad owner outreach. A generalist should explain its learning process, review points and escalation rules. The buyer can then assess whether that process is suitable for the specific brief.
Treat them as different evidence. Relevant experience may help establish capability, but the role performed and the team involved need to be clear. A research method shows how the proposed assignment would be conducted. Neither automatically substitutes for the other. Ask what uncertainty remains after reviewing both and whether a bounded scope, reference or practical exercise can resolve it before appointment.
Ask why those sectors are relevant to the buyer's objective and how the team handles their differences. Use a generic scenario that requires a commercial distinction, then vary a material fact. Review the change in reasoning and proposed evidence. A long list should lead to focused questions, not an assumption of either universal expertise or lack of depth.
Involve one when a material question requires expertise that the buyer and sourcing team do not possess, or when a conclusion needs professional review. Define the question and its decision consequence rather than requesting a broad review without purpose. The specialist's involvement can occur during brief design, qualification or later diligence depending on when the answer is needed. The sourcing adviser should help make that dependency visible.
Revisit the fit evaluation sheet. Identify which required distinctions have changed, whether the assigned team remains suitable and what new specialist input is needed. Amend the scope and responsibilities before treating the expanded search as routine. A provider may remain appropriate, but that should be a considered decision rather than an automatic extension based on a broad coverage claim.
Before choosing a provider, write the knowledge requirement in a sentence: the search needs this depth, across these boundaries, with these specialist questions reserved for review. Then identify the team configuration that can deliver it. Attach the evidence and conditions supporting the decision so the buyer can review them when the brief evolves.
The practical aim is a search that recognises meaningful differences between companies and converts those differences into better decisions. Specialist depth and generalist breadth are tools for that purpose. Their value depends on how they are applied to the buyer's objective, not on which label appears first in a proposal.
About the author: Joash Boyton is founder, owner and CEO of Acquiry, a Melbourne-based M&A advisory firm focused on buy-side acquisition origination. The firm helps buyers define target criteria, identify off-market businesses and qualify owner discussions. acquiry.com.