Overview
A global research organization was doing work in Asia Pacific and needed a very specific mix of technology professionals: technical, commercial, and geographic experience in the same people. General technology backgrounds were not enough. The questions sat in a narrow band of markets and roles that standard research channels had already failed to fill.
The team could find people who had worked in tech. It could not find people who had worked this product, this buyer, and this part of Asia Pacific at the same time. That gap was blocking a $45M research and coverage workstream. Time spent on the wrong profiles was time not spent on the question.
The organization engaged Primary Insight to run a customized search across former executives, technical leaders, channel partners, and enterprise buyers in the target markets.
Challenge
The core challenge was not a lack of technology contacts. It was a lack of independently sourced, decision-grade experts with the right combination of skills and location. Broader channels kept returning adjacent titles. Adjacent was not useful.
Key open questions included:
Who still had current technical and commercial exposure in the exact markets that mattered?
Which enterprise buyers and channel partners could speak to the live motion, not a regional average?
Could former executives add context without substituting for people still in the work?
How narrow did the search need to get before the conversations would be worth the desk’s time?
What would it take to stop spending cycles on generalists?
Without that match, the $45M workstream would keep moving on incomplete expertise.
Approach
Primary Insight built the search around the combination the brief required, not around a generic Asia Pacific tech list. Candidates were qualified for the specific mix of technical, commercial, and geographic experience. Only the people who cleared that bar were presented.
The work then ran as focused PI Calls with that short list. The desk spent its time with the most relevant experts rather than sorting a long roster. When the first matches opened a need for one more buyer-side profile in a single market, sourcing continued until that profile was found.
Outcome
Custom sourcing produced specialized expertise the team had not been able to reach through broader channels. The $45M APAC tech work could move on conversations with people who actually fit the brief.
