Our Blog
Insights, Tutorials & Stories from Our Team
Deep dives, practical tutorials, and lessons shaped by real-world projects.
Qualitative vs Quantitative Research: A Decision Framework for PE and Consulting Teams
Qualitative vs quantitative research for deal teams: a four-question framework for choosing interviews, surveys or both in CDD, with sample-size benchmarks.
Survey Bias: The Six Types That Survive QA and Reach Your Deal Deck
What is survey bias? Six types that pass fraud QA, from sampling and nonresponse bias to leading questions, and the five questions to ask before the deck.
Market Assessment Analysis: A Framework for Deal Teams With 10 Working Days
Market assessment analysis for deal teams: five core components, a ten-working-day timeline, and what to cut when the IC date cannot move.
Commercial Due Diligence Across 140 Countries: What Breaks Between the Proposal and the Fieldwork
What breaks between the country list in a CDD proposal and the fieldwork that delivers it: feasibility, timelines, and what to confirm before committing coverage.
Commercial Due Diligence in Mid-2026: Why Confirmatory-Only Research Now Loses Deals
At 11.8x entry multiples, confirmatory-only commercial due diligence loses deals. Why PE teams now start primary research before the LOI.
Synthetic Respondents: How AI Is Mimicking Customers, Experts, and Employees
Synthetic respondents promise instant, cheap survey data, but for decisions that move capital, AI-generated answers carry a hidden integrity risk. Here's where they work, where they fail, and how to verify your respondents are real.
Sample Open-Ended Questions for Commercial Due Diligence: A Practitioner’s Template
Sample open-ended questions for commercial due diligence, organised by investigation area, plus how to probe, analyse, and turn answers into deal-grade findings. A practitioner’s template.
Human Ground Truth: Why Expert-Led Native-Language Interviews Resist AI Interference
Subject matter expert interviews are the human ground-truth layer that keeps AI-era research honest. How to run them, what to ask, and where they beat data.
What Is a Red Flag Review — and Why PE Firms Are Running Them Earlier
A red flag review is a fast, focused due diligence check PE firms run early to catch deal-breakers before full CDD. Here's what it covers and why timing matters.
What Is Secondary Market Research — and How Fake Reports Reach Your Deal Deck
When a consulting firm cites a market size from Grand View Research and an LLM returns the same figure, both feel like independent sources. They aren't.
Why Human-Verified Primary Research Is Becoming the Control Group for AI Data
When AI writes the brief, sources the panel, and synthesizes the deck, what's left to trust? Why human-verified primary research is becoming the control group every research stack now needs.
Bringing a Remote Team Together: Bell & Holmes in Sicily
Each year Bell & Holmes brings its remote team together in person. This year: four days on the coast of Sicily, near Sciacca, for food, wine and friendly competition.