There are more than 160 expert networks worldwide. You can see them all in the Expert Network Directory. With Inex One, you can access all the best expert networks in one platform.
Expert networks are niche headhunting firms, recruiting people for short-term advisory engagements - typically 1-hour phone calls. Their customers include investment firms, management consultants and strategy professionals in regular companies.
There is a dozen large expert networks with offices around the globe. But most of them are focused on either a region (by geography or language) or industry segment.
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120 Expert Networks compete around the globe, although most of them are focused on a geography or industry niche.
Prior to Inex One, I co-founded an expert network called Previro - focusing on the Nordics (which was underserved during my time at McKinsey). We got strong traction from early on, as clients appreciated our deep reach in the Nordic countries. We also helped Nordic clients with “outbound” searches – finding experts from around the globe. This is the typical evolutionary path of ENs: start local and grow with your customer base.
From there, some find an attractive product-market fit to expand internationally (e.g. Dialectica and Focal Fact serves most of Europe from their respective hubs in Greece and Ireland), whereas others double-down on their region (e.g. Vedak for India), get acquired (e.g. Innosquared, Vista Research, Epito, and many others), or simply move along healthily (in the $3 Bn global expert network industry).
How will the expert network market develop in the next 5 years?
The jury is out on this: there is a case for consolidation, and another one for continued or increased fragmentation.
The Consolidation case is typically expected from an industry, as it matures (as described here or here). For Expert networks, this may be caused by e.g. the need to invest in productivity tech, compliance infrastructure, or simply economies of scale that benefit incumbents and squash smaller players..
The Fragmentation case is built on the assumption that the EN market is yet in an emerging phase (see e.g. Alphasights’ CEO interview) and that ENs have limited economies of scale. The limited value of expert databases (due to the diversity and sector-rotations of private equity investments), short shelf-life of transcript content, and personal data regulations limiting how expert networks can reuse experts. The expert network industry might meet this by producing specialized expert networks, to better recruit niche experts.
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Place your bets – we will continuously revisit this article, to see how things play out.
