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CHALLENGES WE ADDRESS
Private Equity firms and their Portfolio Company CEOs sometimes have diverging Points of View (PoV) that require regular dialogue to align and reconcile.
We outline below how some of these differences may emerge.
Exit
- We want to stagger our investment in PortCo so that we can achieve a strong Exit in 3-5 years
- We need to show good progress to our own LPs so that we can raise our next fund
- The business info we get from our PortCo isn’t of the right depth to validate our Exit strategy
- The business info we get from our PortCo is dated, inconsistent and backward looking
- We set out our strategy to meet the objectives and EBITDA targets so we can achieve a strong Exit in 3-5 years
- As the market evolves we will need to adjust and prioritise
- Our usage data is messy and inconsistent
- We have multiple “buckets” of data. We want to understand their relationships and dependencies to make decisions that accelerate transformation and drive EBITDA growth
Returns
- The future impact of our PortCo’s Value Creation initiatives on EBITDA is uncertain
- Our PortCo needs to expand into new Markets
- We want to acquire complementary businesses in adjacent domains and scale our PortCo rapidly
- What metrics should my PortCo be using to measure performance? How do we turn items that get discussed at our Monthly Review into a set of actions that get tracked to speedy completion?
- Our investment target looks attractive, but its tech stack is a known unknown
- We need to show progress against our Business Transformation plan and accelerate EBITDA growth
- We’re unsure as to exactly what Geographic distribution will drive the strongest EBITDA growth
- We have an EBITDA driven M&A strategy but we don’t know how to make the right investment choices. We already have duplicate systems and teams from the last bolt-on acquisition that we’ve struggled to integrate
- Sharing performance data with our investors each month is a time consuming, manual process. How do I share business performance info with my investors more efficiently?
- Our IT estate is messy and dated
Strategy
- We don’t want our PortCo to take its foot off the pedal
- We think our PortCo’s organisation structure and ways of working is limiting its responsiveness to changing market needs and its growth trajectory
- What organisational changes does our PortCo need to make to drive growth more cost efficiently?
- To scale successfully our PortCo needs to streamline and automate its key business processes
- Our PortCo needs to embed superior customer service in order to retain existing and win new customers
- We need to turn items that get discussed at the Monthly Review with our PortCo into a set of executable measurable actions
- We need to prioritise the right investment roadmap for future growth without affecting the business today
- We’ve lost our ability to innovate fast. Our best people are leaving
- As a Product / SaaS business how should we set up our delivery organisation to accelerate development?
- Too many of our processes are manual, duplicated and error prone
We need to improve our Productivity, reduce our Cycle Times and Operating Costs - Our customer service is too slow and our best customers get frustrated
- We want to do a better job at funnelling our ideas for business improvement - regardless of whether they come from Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, R&D or our Investors!
Tech
- We need to make sure that our PortCo does not get side-tracked and end up investing its new funds into multiple vanity projects without the ROI. They must keep to the Strategic Plan that we have already agreed
- How do I gauge the state of the target investment’s Tech stack and whether the investment required in cost and time is above an acceptable level?
- What Tech strategy will get us to exit in a cost efficient way while enabling us to drive significant sales growth?
- What new Tech should our PortCos be investing in?
- How is Gen AI going to change the industries we are investing in?
- How exposed is our PortCo to Cyber Security threats? What are their gaps?
- My CIO / CTO has a long list of Tech initiatives all demanding budget. I want us to learn how to prioritise better. We pay huge sums to our Cloud and other Tech vendors but we don’t fully understand what we get in return and steps we can take to optimise
- Is my Technology and Data landscape fit for the future or will it deter potential buyers? Do we have a single view of a customer / product / order across my business? How can we make better use of our data?
- How do I know which Tech initiatives to prioritise and in what order to tackle them?
- We want to take advantage of recent innovations in software and technology but we don’t know where to start.
- Should I bother investing in any of this AI magic fairy dust today? Or should I wait a couple of years for the new Tech to prove itself?
- Do we have a Business Continuity Plan? And when was it last tested?
business needs
users
design
build
deploy
learn
evaluate
repeat
consulting
technology
results !!!