Portfolio-wide need for digital marketing consultant
A PE VP of Operations came to us with a critical need for a digital marketing consultant for their entire portfolio. Each company within the firm’s portfolio was experiencing similar problems around communicating digital marketing spend. They saw this as an opportunity to bring in a team that could conduct a portfolio-wide digital marketing assessment and consult the portcos on their current processes, if they were good or bad, where to spend their budget, & more. Given the importance of digital marketing in today’s world, they were looking for an team that was available to start that same month.
BluWave assessed need and presented exact-fit digital marketing consultant
Leveraging our founder’s 20 years in private equity, we have extensive frameworks for assessing PE-grade digital marketing needs. BluWave utilizes technology, data, and human ingenuity to pre-map, assess, monitor, and maintain deep pools of digital marketing consultancies that uniquely meet the private equity standard. We interviewed the PE firm to understand their specific key criteria and then connected the client with the select pre-vetted digital marketing consulting team from our invitation-only Intelligent Network that fit their exact needs.
PE firm confidently engaged provider to assess all companies in the portfolio
Quickly after the initial scoping call, the PE firm and portfolio company were introduced to a select few digital marketing consultancies that specialized in working with PE-backed companies to get their digital marketing up to snuff. The client selected their ideal choice. The PE firm was able to assess the digital marketing capabilities across the portfolio and provide them with the resources they needed to roadmap a plan for improvement.
As part of an ongoing series, we’re sharing real-time trending topics we are hearing from our 500+ PE firm clients. In our most recent installment, one of our Managing Consultants, Scott Bellinger, talks about how leading PE firms are utilizing third parties to manage procurement issues that have been brought on due to inflation and supply chain issues roaring out of control.
Learn more about the unique ways in which PE firms are utilizing third-party procurement groups by watching the video below.
Interested in connecting with a third-party procurement group or any other type of third party? Contact us here. You can also learn more about the specific ways we drive value for PE firms by connecting them to the exact-fit resources they need by reading our case studies.
Every quarter we gather Operating Executives in PE to discuss current industry topics and to offer peers the chance to gather, share information, and decompress with one another. In our most recent event, we gathered to discuss optimal operating team structure, how firms are tackling ESG, as well as GTM and growth strategies.
These forums are for PE Operating Executives only and follow Chatham House Rules, so listed below are high-level takeaways only. Are you in private equity and interested in joining fellow Operating Executives during our next Operating Partners’ Forum? RSVP for the August 23rd forum.
Optimal Ops Team Structure: Every ops team continues to look slightly different—varying between hiring full-time functional/industry experts and/or “athletes”/generalists. Generalists can be dropped into any portco situation, analyze it, and pull in the right third parties when needed. On the other hand, specialists can insource the work by adding niche expertise and credibility. When making the decision between a generalist and a specialist, consider the ramp-up cycle and strategic value. If the project has a high strategic value, many firms choose to use specialists and keep the work in-house. General rule: Have enough capability (in-house or outsourced) to own and execute the value creation plan.
ESG: Even without a mandate, ESG is coming up in more and more conversations and firms are leaning into creating a plan. These plans can look like a lot of different things, but a simple first step is to gauge where you are on various ESG factors at that given moment, and then start to measure (and report) progress. Pick your shots, and don’t feel compelled to tackle every aspect under the ESG umbrella. On the DEI front, some firms have developed a baseline to measure progress on diversity in recruiting, board composition, internal fund composition, and recruiter candidate presentation. Some firms, such as Sumeru, have developed a GP-level DEI strategy by recruiting candidates from underrepresented backgrounds and creating mentorship/fellowship programs.
GTM/Growth Strategy: Go to market strategy is one of the biggest value creation levers a PE firm can pull. In the “new now,” industries and supply chains are meaningfully changing their pricing structures. For many, pricing has become a top initiative at every portco in the portfolio. The top tips in this category were: 1) decrease portcos’ reliance on a single supply contributor in case that person leaves; 2) over-assign sales quotas, knowing you will likely have more attrition than historically; 3) lean more into digital channels to stay relevant.
We thoroughly enjoyed getting to gather with PE Operating Executives to discuss these current hot topics. If we can be of help sourcing needed specialists, developing your ESG strategy, or connecting you with pricing expertise, please contact us.
Interested in learning more about BluWave? Check out our Introduction to BluWave video to learn more about us and how we can help you.
Every quarter our team analyzes the projects we work on with our 500+ PE firm clients to get a birdseye view of the market. You can request your copy here to view all of the trends that we have seen over the past quarter.
Key findings from Q1 included value creation at a historical high, deal flow reflecting 2019 versus 2021, & inflationary pressures impacting how firms thought about everything from pricing to talent.
Learn more about the insights we gleaned from the report by watching the video below.
BluWave has a unique vantage in the private equity industry, working with more than 500 of the world’s top private equity firms across thousands of projects in due diligence, value creation, and preparing for sale. From this activity, we’re able to discern unique insights regarding how and why the world works. The top insight of the first quarter of 2022 relates to value creation. A staggering all-time high record 78% of initiatives tracked in the BluWave Activity Index related to value creation. Here are a few other trends that you might find helpful. Human capital is becoming increasingly important in private equity. With the fallout from The Great Resignation still alive and well, firms are struggling to fill key roles, which has resulted in an increase in time and resources invested in human capital. Across the BluWave Activity Index, 42% is related to human capital, which is up from 36% in the previous quarter. Firms have been utilizing specialized HR resources to recruit A-level talent, retain key players, and bring in critical interim skill sets. One of the biggest trends we’re seeing in private equity and the broader global economy is inflation. We’re seeing PE take proactive measures using specialized third-parties to help them pass through rising input costs, defend against price increases, and hone the operational efficiency of their portfolio companies. For more unique private equity insights, request the BluWave Q1 Insights Report today by following the link below or by contacting us at info@BluWave.net.
A Partner at a LMM PE firm came to us with an immediate need for a board member for the manufacturing company they recently closed on. The PE firm bought the company from the founder and was in need of an experienced outside board member that could serve as a sounding board for the CEO, work on strategy to improve growth and help professionalize the organization.
The Challenge
Connect with Local Expert
They were in urgent need of an individual local to the area with experience in the industry, experience in transitioning a family-owned business to a professionally managed organization and the ability to commit to more than quarterly board meetings.
How BluWave Helped
Select Pre-Vetted Board Members Presented
Leveraging our founder’s 20 years in private equity, we have extensive frameworks for assessing PE-grade board member needs. BluWave utilizes technology, data and human ingenuity to pre-map, assess, monitor and maintain deep pools of board members that uniquely meet the private equity standard. We interviewed the PE firm to understand their specific key criteria and then identified a select few pre-vetted board members from our invitation-only Business Builders’ Network that fit their exact needs.
The Result
Accelerated Profitability, High-Valuation Sale
Quickly after the initial scoping call, the PE firm was introduced to the first identified exact-fit board member for their needs. After being presented with the select few options, the client selected their ideal choice. The PE firm was able to confidently engage the individual who provided the coaching and support the portco’s CEO needed, helping professionalize the organization and providing support for their strategy and growth needs.
We are uniquely equipped to move quickly for midmarket companies. We have a network of thousands of PE-grade individuals, specifically geared for midmarket companies, that we can tap into in order to connect a firm with the exact-fit board member they need.
BluWave works with over 500 PE funds from around the globe as well as their portfolio companies and proactive independent companies, connecting them with pre-vetted, best-in-class, third-party service providers across a variety of resource and functional areas. From information technology and manufacturing to healthcare, consumer goods, and beyond, our clients are expert business builders. In other words, they have their heads in the game and their hands on the pulse of news and insights you can use.
Check out the latest, curated collection of reports, insights, and musings from a handful of our PE fund clients on everything from ESG to cybersecurity, and inflation to sales.
Advent’s Managing Director, Tricia Glynn, talks with the chair of Goldman Sachs’ Investment Banking division about a wide array of topics including investing through an ESG lens; trends in the retail, consumer, and leisure sector; and her economic outlook for 2022.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated many businesses’ plans to move more and more digital. With this change comes an increased risk in terms of cybersecurity. With a cyberattack estimated to occur every 39 seconds, Blackstone shares insight into how their portco Vectra has developed an innovative solution to this problem.
Scot Duncan, MiddleGround co-founding partner, speaks on a panel covering sustainable profitability in manufacturing companies. He shares ways MiddleGround’s portfolio companies are increasing revenue amidst an environment of supply chain challenges and labor shortages.
ParkerGale’s Paul Stansik is joined by two guests to talk about prospecting and how to get growth right. They share their varying opinions on how to prospect well, the evolving role of the BDR/SDR, and more.
Our team recently had the pleasure of sponsoring the 2022 PEI Operating Partners Human Capital Forum in New York. In the below video, Katie Marchetti, BluWave Managing Director, recaps her key takeaways from the conference as a whole as well as the panel she moderated. Key takeaways include:
CHROs are on the rise at both the portco & firm level
Human capital leaders are working with deal teams more in diligence to ensure alignment
Many firms are leading with data on the human capital front
If you have a human capital need or any other need we can support, contact us here. Additionally, if you are a PE talent professional, be sure to join us and other leading PE talent professionals at our next virtual PE Human Capital Forum on May 4th by registering here.
When PE firms purchase a new portfolio company, there are specific reasons for doing so, leading to a specific set of metrics in mind that the firm wants to report on and monitor, such as customer acquisition cost, profit margins, and customer churn. The PE firm’s operations team focuses on optimizing and improving these key metrics by making changes as needed in the company’s operations, marketing, finance, and other functions. Real-time reporting on the key metrics allows an operating partner and key leaders within the business to proactively see situations coming that may require an adjustment.
Detailed reporting on each company within a portfolio, which each have different reporting systems, is a time-consuming task that inhibits the ability to look at metrics across the board in real-time as needed. In order to seek a solution to this problem, a PE firm came to us.
Challenge:
A PE firm operating partner came to us challenged by the lack of integrated systems his portfolio companies had for reporting on key metrics. Each company had different reporting measures for each of its different KPIs and digging into these metrics across each company in the portfolio was inefficient, inhibiting quick decision making, and consuming valuable time.
In order to win back time and monitor his portfolio companies with ease, he came to us in need of a third party that could ultimately create one dashboard that would report on all of the same metrics for each company across the portfolio. Immediately, they were looking for a group that could start by doing this for one portfolio company as a pilot, in order to see if it would be useful if scaled across the entire portfolio.
Solution:
Leveraging our founder’s 20 years in private equity, we have extensive frameworks for assessing PE-grade data analytics needs. BluWave utilizes technology, data, and human ingenuity to pre-map, assess, monitor, and maintain deep pools of data analytics resources that uniquely meet the private equity standard. We interviewed the PE firm to understand their specific key criteria and then connected them to a select pre-vetted data analytics group from our invitation-only Intelligent Marketplace that had the capabilities that fit their exacting needs.
Result:
The selected data analytics group got to work on providing the PE firm with the needed dashboards by first implementing ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) software that could tie all of the pilot portfolio company’s systems into a single source of truth. Once this initial step was done, they were able to begin developing dashboards through a data visualization tool. By first combining all of the systems into a single source of truth, the dashboards were created in a way that would allow them to update in real-time, allowing the PE firm to access key data points for the portfolio company at the click of a button.
This was such a success with the first portfolio company that they were able to implement the ETL software across the portfolio, bringing each company’s data to the same point of maturity and combining it into a single source of truth. This allowed dashboards to not only be created for each separate company, but also allowed for dashboards to be created that connected all of the portfolio companies’ data together in order to analyze portfolio-wide trends. This resulted in time being saved at both the portco and PE level, as well as resulted in significant business improvements being made throughout the portfolio due to trends that the dashboards highlighted.
Our inaugural 2022 Top 50 PE Innovator Awards recognized the top 1% of firms in the private equity industry as determined by BluWave for their innovative practices in:*
Proactive Due Diligence Practices
Transformative Value Creation
Progressive Private Equity Firm Operations
ESG
As part of our awards, we recognized MiddleGround Capital as the 2022 PE Innovator of the Year due to their differential achievements across the above categories. MiddleGround makes control equity investments in B2B industrial and specialty distribution businesses. The firm was founded by John Stewart, Lauren Mulholland, and Scot Duncan in 2018. MiddleGround partners with small and mid-sized businesses, providing extensive operational resources to help them build and grow. The firm is a signatory to the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment, which provides a framework for investing responsibly and integrating ESG practices into investment practices.
Learn more about why MiddleGround was selected for this top award as well as their approaches to due diligence, value creation, pe firm operations, and ESG in the video below.
*BluWave, LP has not received investment capital from and holds no ownership interest in the PE firms evaluated or recognized under the Top 50 PE Innovator awards program. BluWave received no compensation from any of the PE firms in connection with this awards program. However, BluWave may otherwise provide services to the PE firms and/or portfolio companies, but BluWave confirms that its assessment of the PE firms was independent of any such service arrangements. Top 1% in the PE industry is based on BluWave’s review of the more than 5,000 PE firms in the U.S. and Canada from which 50 PE firms were selected as award recipients.
We are pleased to announce the inaugural 2022 Top 50 Private Equity Innovator Awards, an award recognizing firms that represent the top 1% in the private equity industry as determined by BluWave for their innovative practices in:*
Proactive Due Diligence Practices
Transformative Value Creation
Progressive Private Equity Firm Operations
ESG
The BluWave Top 50 Private Equity Innovator Award recipients were selected based upon a rigorous assessment in consultation with leading limited partners, investment bankers and other thought leaders in the private equity ecosystem. Partnering with more than 500 leading private equity firms, we have a unique perspective that enables us to understand best practices and innovation in the private equity industry.
“Private equity is a driving force in the economy, supporting the growth and development of virtually every type of business and providing more than 11 million jobs in America,” says Sean Mooney, Founder and CEO, BluWave. “We congratulate these top 50 private equity firms that are taking uniquely innovative approaches to building businesses and creating sustainable value for a wide range of stakeholders.”
BluWave also recognizes Lexington, Kentucky headquartered MiddleGround Capital with the Innovator of the Year Award due to the company’s achievements across due diligence, value creation, PE firm operations, and ESG. MiddleGround makes control equity investments in B2B industrial and specialty distribution businesses. The firm was founded by John Stewart, Lauren Mulholland, and Scot Duncan in 2018. MiddleGround partners with small and mid-sized businesses, providing extensive operational resources to help them build and grow. The firm is a signatory to the United Nations-supported Principles for Responsible Investment, which provides a framework for investing responsibly and integrating ESG practices into investment practices.
You can discover further information on the BluWave 2022 Top 50 Private Equity Innovator Awards, including the selection process, selection criteria, and recipients, here.
*BluWave, LP has not received investment capital from and holds no ownership interest in the PE firms evaluated or recognized under the Top 50 PE Innovator awards program. BluWave received no compensation from any of the PE firms in connection with this awards program. However, BluWave may otherwise provide services to the PE firms and/or portfolio companies, but BluWave confirms that its assessment of the PE firms was independent of any such service arrangements. Top 1% in the PE industry is based on BluWave’s review of the more than 5,000 PE firms in the U.S. and Canada from which 50 PE firms were selected as award recipients.
A PE firm VP came to us with an immediate need for an interim CTO for their recent healthcare TPA acquisition. Having recently closed on the portco, they were looking for an individual that could help them remediate and roadmap the company’s tech stack. They urgently needed an individual that could modernize the tech stack and focus on cyber remediation so that the PE firm could then move forward with other value creation plans at the portco. They were in need of someone with coding skills, experience working with TPAs, experience working under HIPPA compliance, and availability to work on site.
Using pre-vetted network, BluWave identified interim CTO’s that met the exact needs of the firm
Leveraging our founder’s 20 years in private equity, we have extensive frameworks for assessing PE-grade interim CTO needs. BluWave utilizes technology, data, and human ingenuity to pre-map, assess, monitor, and maintain deep pools of interim CTOs that uniquely meet the private equity standard. We interviewed the PE firm to understand their specific key criteria and then identified three select pre-vetted interim CTOs from our invitation-only Intelligent Marketplace that fit their exact needs.
PE firm connected to exact-fit interim CTO for the portco
Within 24 hours of the initial scoping call, the PE firm was introduced to the first identified exact-fit interim CTO for their needs. After being presented with the select few options, the client selected their ideal choice. The PE firm was able to confidently engage the individual who immediately began road mapping and remediating the portco’s tech stack, allowing the PE firm to quickly move forward with further value creation plans.
As part of an ongoing series, we’re sharing real-time trending topics we are hearing from our 500+ PE firm clients. In our most recent installment, one of our Managing Consultants, Keenan Kolinsky, talks about one of the ways private equity firms are responding to The Great Resignation – Interim Executives. He shares why the need for interim executives is rising in private equity, how they can be used, and why they are beneficial especially to PE firms.
Interested in learning more about interim executives, how our clients have utilized them, and how we help? Check out our Interim Executives Hub to find case studies, scorecards, and more.
You can also learn more from Keenan in the video below.
Interested in connecting with an interim executive? Contact us here or click the “start a project” button above. We would be happy to promptly begin assisting you.
