What are the data services for sourcing you use that are worth paying for?

We map competition universes - sets of many thousands of online competitors within a sector, and how their offers intersect with each other and align to the demand in the market. We use it to spot microgaps in the market ('purple ocean strategy' ) and help effectively target inorganic growth - both in identifying targets from tens of thousands of prospects pre-deal, and integrating the acquired offering post-deal.

This is not operational expenditure, spent and gone if a deal falls through - it's a capital investment in knowledge of a sector, so it's one that can be used again and again until you find the firm(s) you want to approach. It would also form the basis for a post-deal strategic plan - informing digital strategy and product offering.

I'm investigating how this data could be made available to the search fund community... but before I get overexcited about the possibilities, we need to do our own research into the market. Can you tell us your experiences with data and insight services, and what you wished they provided? What would really be worth the money? How much money? If you could analyse the expressed needs of en entire society, what use would you put that to?

I look forward to hearing from you.