Why a Spain market study is not an entry plan
A good market study answers one question: whether Spain is worth it. Size, competitors, pricing, sector rules. It is serious work, and it is usually done well.
But it answers the wrong question for the day after. Once entry is approved, the board no longer needs to know whether to enter. It needs to know in what order, against which success criteria and what stays out.
Entries into Spain rarely fail for lack of analysis. They fail on order. The study describes the market. It does not decide what comes first, who decides it or what must be true before the next step. That decision is not in any appendix. It belongs to leadership, and it is the core of a Spain market entry mandate.
Three market entry mistakes when entering Spain: getting the order wrong
All three have something in common: each step, on its own, looks reasonable.
1. The entity before the customers. Incorporation is the easiest thing to plan: it has a notary, formalities and a clear end. So it goes first. The result is a structure with fixed costs, tax obligations and a calendar of its own, before anyone knows which customers will need it and on what terms. The decision on the legal and tax structure should follow the commercial plan, not run ahead of it, without prejudice to what the rules require before operating.
2. The hire before the role is understood. Hiring someone in Spain feels like progress. But if it is not yet clear which customers, which partners and what pace are needed, the profile is chosen blind. When the plan finally becomes clear, the first team often has to be rebuilt. That change costs more than the wait.
3. Copying another country's playbook. What worked in the home market, or in another European country, does not simply transfer. Spain has its own decision pace, its own counterparts and its own calendar. Copying the playbook saves weeks of design and tends to cost months of correction.
None of these mistakes comes from a lack of information. They are sequencing decisions nobody took explicitly.
What a Spain entry plan the board can defend contains
A board does not defend a study. It defends a sequence. And a defensible sequence fits on a few pages if it answers three things.
Success criteria. What must have happened for the board to consider the entry on track: which customers, which partners, which signals from the market. Agreed before starting, not reconstructed afterwards.
What stays out. Which segments, regions, products or channels are not touched in the first phase. Saying no is what makes focus possible. Without a written perimeter, everything looks urgent and nothing moves.
What must be true in 90 days. Not a five-year plan, but the concrete and checkable: first customer conversations open, partners identified, the minimum team defined, and the legal and tax structure decided with your advisers on the basis of all of the above.
With those three answers, the market study becomes what it should be: the starting point. And the board has something it can review on a fixed cadence, on evidence from the market rather than impressions.
One question remains: who answers for that sequence in Spain. One person, not a committee, with a clear mandate and the obligation to report to the board.
If that person is not yet in place, an interim senior leader in Spain can hold the mandate until they are.
What to do
- Write the success criteria for the entry on one page, and agree them with the board before incorporating anything.
- Put in writing what stays out of the first phase: segments, regions, products and channels.
- Define what must be true in 90 days, and in what order.
- Ask your legal and tax advisers to propose the structure on the basis of that commercial plan, and to tell you what must be in place before operating.
- Name one person accountable for the sequence in Spain, with the mandate in writing.
Written by Xavier Cima, Founder & CEO