Function: Operations

Urgent need for sales & marketing focused org design consultant

PE firm needs consulting group to improve sales and marketing functions

A PE partner came to us with an urgent need for a boutique sales consulting group that could perform a sales diagnostic for their software portfolio company and help with org design for the company’s sales and marketing functions. With the head of marketing no longer at the company, the firm was looking to reset the sales and marketing function to improve growth. They needed someone to come in, assess the current sales and marketing function, identify what channels they should be focused on, and then give them guidance on how to build the department and who to hire in order to achieve growth. The firm needed this guidance as soon as possible and were ideally hoping it would come from someone with past marketing experience, and M&A expertise.

Using pre-vetted network, BluWave identifies exact-fit providers

Leveraging our founder’s 20 years in private equity, we have extensive frameworks for assessing PE-grade org design and consulting needs. BluWave utilizes technology, data, and human ingenuity to pre-map, assess, monitor, and maintain deep pools of specialized boutique consulting firms 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 groups and independent consultants from our invitation-only Intelligent Network that fit their exacting needs.

Firm engages ideal org design consultant to improve the portco’s sales and marketing

Within 24 hours of the initial scoping call, the PE firm and portfolio company were introduced to three select PE-grade org design consultants that specialized in organizational design & assessment for sales and marketing functions in software companies. The client selected their ideal choice and the firm was able to confidently build out a hiring plan that would allow them to reset their sales and marketing functions and achieve growth thanks to the work of the provider we connected them with.

Critical digital marketing independent contractor to advise software portfolio

Firm needs consultant to enhance digital marketing efforts across portcos

A PE managing director came to us with a critical need for a product marketing and positioning independent contractor who could advise several of the tech and software companies in his firm’s portfolio on their digital marketing efforts. With the digital world evolving quickly, the firm was in critical need of someone who could help their portcos enhance their digital marketing capabilities to best position themselves against their competitors. The firm was looking for someone who could advise on digital content, SEO, and other marketing activities as it related to each company’s product and brand positioning goals. It was crucial that the provider had industry experience and proven functional expertise.

BluWave has exact-fit, PE-grade digital marketing consultants

Leveraging our founder’s 20 years in private equity, we have extensive frameworks for assessing PE-grade marketing needs. BluWave utilizes technology, data, and human ingenuity to pre-map, assess, monitor, and maintain deep pools of expert marketing independent contractors 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 marketing resources from our invitation-only Intelligent Network that fit their exacting needs.

Firm chooses ideal provider to improve the digital positioning of their portcos

The day after the initial scoping call, the PE firm and portfolio company were introduced to three PE-grade marketing independent contractors that specialized in digital content, SEO, and broader marketing activities for software companies. The client selected their ideal choice. The PE firm engaged the provider and was able to gain confidence in the digital positioning of each company in their portfolio thanks to the advisor’s help.

Merger integration consultant urgently needed for software & industrial services merger

PE firm critically needs merger integration experts

A PE operating partner came to us with a critical need for a merger integration consultant to help them develop a playbook, provide resource coaching, and execute a planned merger of their existing portco with a new add-on in the software sector of the industrial services industry. With a lot of operational integration that needed to be done and the target add-on in the process of acquiring two additional companies, the firm urgently needed a small team of merger integration experts that could manage the complexity of this integration. The PE firm was seeking a provider that had industry expertise, a proven track record of successful merger integrations, and the ability to start in the next month.

BluWave identifies industry-specific consultants within network

Leveraging our founder’s 20 years in private equity, we have extensive frameworks for assessing PE-grade merger integration needs. BluWave utilizes technology, data, and human ingenuity to pre-map, assess, monitor, and maintain deep pools of merger integration consultants 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 merger integration consultants from our invitation-only Intelligent Network that fit their exacting needs.

Firm engages top choice to execute integrations

Quickly after the initial scoping call, the PE firm and portfolio company were introduced to three select PE-grade merger integration providers that had industry expertise and were available to get started immediately. The client selected their ideal choice. The PE firm was able to confidently begin executing the integrations, trusting that the provider BluWave connected them with was handling all of the niche complexities of the situation.

In the Know: The Importance of Interim CFOs

October 27, 2022 Delaney Walker

As part of an ongoing series, we’re sharing real-time trending topics we are hearing from the hundreds of PE firms we work with. In our most recent installment, Erez Schnaittacher, BluWave vice president of client coverage, shares the importance of interim CFOs and why they are a vital resource all PE firms should be taking advantage of. Learn more by watching the video below.

Interested in connecting with interim CFOs? Contact us here to quickly get connected to the exact-fit interim CFO you need.

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Video transcript:

The CFO role is one of the most critical seats in a business. The position plays a key role in ensuring that a business is strong and if PE-backed, that the investment is successful. Because this seat is vital to a company’s success, it is important that it is not left open, and is also filled by someone who possesses the right skillset to execute on the demands that come with being a CFO.

To ensure that both of these are always the case, PE firms often turn towards interim CFOs. At BluWave, we equip our private equity firm clients with interim CFOs for various due diligence, value creation, and prep-for-sale needs. Here are some of the most common use cases for bringing in interim CFOs:

Number one, unanticipated departures. When CFOs unexpectedly resign, it can leave a company’s finance function in chaos. We help PE firms combat this by providing them with exact-fit interim CFOs who can quickly step in, fill the shoes of the role, and keep the ship steady while the search for a permanent placement kicks off.

Number two, longer than normal hiring processes. Even when a CFO seat is expected to be vacant within a certain timeframe, sourcing a candidate to step in at the exact time you need them to can be challenging. With hiring processes taking longer than normal, interim CFOs can help bridge the gap, giving you extra time to ensure you hire the best-fit person for the job.

Number three, professionalizing new portcos’ finance functions. We are supporting many PE firms as soon as a deal closes, by supplying them with interim CFOs. These firms are bringing in these individuals to help new portcos’ finance functions understand what it means to be PE-grade, and help them get the right monthly performance packages in place to ensure that the PE firm is getting the info it needs.

And finally, number four, prep for sale processes. Our clients bring in interim CFOs to respond to diligence requests, assess data, and pull reports prior to a sale. By bringing in an extra set of hands to take care of the extra workload that comes with a sale process, FTEs are freed up to maintain focus on keeping the daily routines going, without causing a delay on the sale process. The modern-day M&A process is fast and furious, valuations decline the second you have to hit the pause button, making it crucial to keep the momentum.

Interim CFOs are one of the most versatile and useful resources available to private equity firms. Hundreds of leading firms come to us with their interim CFOs because of our ability to know before they need, hone in on individuals that meet their specific, unique criteria, and quickly connect them to the select few that are exact-fit.

If we can support your interim CFO needs, please contact us at insights@bluwave.net.

PEI Operating Partners Forum – New York 2022 Event Recap

October 27, 2022 Delaney Walker

On October 19th and 20th, 2022, our team had the opportunity to attend and sponsor the PEI Operating Partners Forum – New York 2022. It was PEI’s largest event to date with over 500 PE ops professionals in attendance, a testament to the growing ops function in private equity.

At the conference, our founder & CEO, Sean Mooney, hosted a panel titled, “Unlocking the Due Diligence Imperative to Rapidly Achieve the Value Creation Plan”. The panelists – Cici Zheng of ParkerGale Capital, Marc Jourlait of The Riverside Company, and Kalyan Mukherjee of Apollo Global Management – all shared insightful thoughts on this topic and we have captured some our key takeaways below:

Leveraging Diligence Streams to Inform Value Creation

  • Overall, value creation plans are being created and put into place earlier in the process than has been done historically.
    • Benefits include building trust with the management teams and having the time and information upfront to formulate a more fully baked value creation plan.
  • Ops teams find it critical to work with specialized groups for commercial due diligence that already know and understand the market.
  • Areas assessed upfront in diligence to help ops teams better understand risk include human capital, technology, operations, and ESG.

Working with Deal Teams & Managing the Diligence Chaos

  • Ops teams have discovered that working with deal teams from day 1 helps avoid any post-close surprises.
  • Early work with the deal team helps the ops teams better understand what the deal team is underwriting for, allowing the ops team to better prioritize and position value creation plans.
  • Many firms are leveraging technology to manage the many diligence processes that are happening at any given time.

We greatly enjoyed learning from these thought leaders and connecting with both familiar as well as new faces at the PEI Operating Partners Forum – New York 2022. You can learn about specific ways we equip PE operating professionals with the exact-fit, specialized third parties they need here. If you have an immediate need we can support, contact us here and we will immediately get started.

ESG consultant needed across portfolio

PE founder needs ESG consultant for 3-year plan

A PE firm founder came to us with a critical need for an ESG consultant that could help their firm develop an ESG plan and implement it across their portfolio. Having recently recognized the growing importance of ESG to GPs and LPs, they urgently needed a specialized consultant to help with their planning on how to effectively implement ESG initiatives at both the firm and portco level. The founder wanted a provider who could build out a 3-year ESG implementation plan focused on the most critical aspects of ESG from an LP’s perspective, as well as help them implement practical efforts to integrate ESG into their standard due diligence process. Ultimately, the founder needed a best-in-class ESG consultant who understood their size fund and how LPs looked at them, could build out a strategic plan that the deal team could execute, and support the firm with the timing of the implementation.

BluWave identifies top provider for client’s needs

Leveraging our founder’s 20 years in private equity, we have extensive frameworks for assessing PE-grade ESG consultant needs. BluWave utilizes technology, data, and human ingenuity to pre-map, assess, monitor, and maintain deep pools of ESG consultants 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 providers from our invitation-only Intelligent Network that fit their exacting needs.

Firm confidently engages provider to begin ESG strategy work

Within 24 hours of the initial scoping call, the PE firm was introduced to three top ESG strategy providers that met their exact criteria. The founder selected their ideal choice. The PE firm was able to confidently engage a top ESG consultant to build out the plan they needed to implement ESG efforts across both the firm and the portfolio.

Full value creation vitally needed for carveout

Firm needs value creation providers across services

A PE firm came to us with a critical need for multiple value creation providers for a recently acquired manufacturing portco. A new carveout from a large company, the firm needed to engage multiple providers to aid with the carveout process over the next 14 months before the TSA that extended critical services ended. They needed PE-grade providers for IT strategy and implementation, hardware replacement, cybersecurity assessment, an interim CFO role, capacity planning and operations improvement, and procurement & sourcing. Each provider needed to meet a unique set of criteria in order to suit the firms needs for the new carveout.

BluWave indentifies pre-vetted providers for each need

Leveraging our founder’s 20 years in private equity, we have extensive frameworks for assessing PE-grade carveout needs. BluWave utilizes technology, data, and human ingenuity to pre-map, assess, monitor, and maintain deep pools of providers that uniquely meet the private equity standard. We interviewed the PE firm to understand their specific key criteria for each carveout need, and then connected the client with the select pre-vetted providers from our invitation-only Intelligent Network that fit each one.

Firm engages PE-grade providers with exacting expertise

Within 24 hours of the initial scoping call, the PE firm and portfolio company were introduced to the first set of providers they needed that specialized in the manufacturing industry. For each carveout need, we presented select providers, and the client then selected their ideal choice. The PE firm was able to quickly engage a variety of top providers to meet each of their needs and ultimately, ensure a seamless carveout process.

Compliance group urgently needed for quality control process

Urgent need for FDA compliance group

A PE firm’s principal of operations came to us with a critical need for a compliance group that could help them assess a target pharmaceutical manufacturing company’s FDA-certified quality control process. Working on a fragile deal, the firm needed an expert provider who could assess the company’s processes in order to ensure they were well-documented, identify if there could be issues in the future given where the FDA was going, and note if the results from a recent FDA inspection were kosher. The firm needed the provider to be PE-grade, understand the pharmaceutical space, and be enough of an expert to also provide recommendations as they performed the audit.

BluWave finds exact-fit provider to match firm’s needs

Leveraging our founder’s 20 years in private equity, we have extensive frameworks for assessing PE-grade compliance & regulatory needs. BluWave utilizes technology, data, and human ingenuity to pre-map, assess, monitor, and maintain deep pools of compliance & regulatory groups as well as independent consultants that uniquely meet the private equity standard. We interviewed the PE firm to understand their specific key criteria, and then connected the client with a select pre-vetted provider from our invitation-only Intelligent Network that fit their exacting needs.

Firm engages presented provider to conduct quality control

Within less than 24 hours of the initial scoping call, the PE firm was introduced to an exact-fit PE-grade compliance group that specialized in assessing FDA quality control processes .The PE firm confidently engaged the provider to conduct the audit. Thanks to the provider’s work, the firm was able to gain the insights they needed on the current state and needed improvements of the target’s processes in order to move forward with the deal.

Cost reduction group hired to analyze legacy supply contracts

Cost reduction group needed to immediately cut costs

A private equity firm acquired a leading plastics company that designed and manufactured innovative plastic-injection-molded products. The firm believed there was room for improvement and cost reductions in the company’s supply contracts. Still, it lacked certainty given the nature of the portfolio company’s products and its specific resin grades. The firm asked us to connect it with a best-in-class cost-reduction group with deep expertise in this particular need.

We quickly met with the client to understand their specific needs

We first interviewed the PE firm to understand the nuances of its needs and the unique challenges involved with post-transaction efforts to reduce costs. Then we quickly matched these criteria to the pre-vetted candidates from our invitation-only network, rooted in our founder’s 20 years of PE industry experience. Based on our proprietary approach, the PE firm hired a group of resources with the exact plastics market experience they needed, as well as key relationships with manufacturers.

Cost reduction group saved our client more than $10m

The vetted group identified more than $10 million in annual savings and created more than $80 million of pro forma enterprise value.

GTM strategist vitally needed to accelerate growth

PE firm needs GTM strategist to grow financial services portfolio company

A managing director came to us with a critical need for a growth strategy consultant for their financial services company. After several years of holding the company and experiencing annual organic growth, the PE firm was looking to accelerate growth within the portfolio company by reevaluating their GTM strategy. With a desire to grow the top line, the managing director had a crucial need for a GTM strategist who could help drive revenue through the improvement of the sales process and close rate while leading the analysis of overall go-to-market and growth options.

BluWave identifies PE-grade GTM growth strategists within pre-vetted network

Leveraging our founder’s 20 years in private equity, we have extensive frameworks for assessing PE-grade GTM & growth strategy needs. BluWave utilizes technology, data, and human ingenuity to pre-map, assess, monitor, and maintain deep pools of growth strategy consultants 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 independent consultants from our invitation-only Intelligent Network that fit their exacting needs.

Firm is provided with an ideal growth strategy consultant for their portfolio company

Within less than 24 hours of the initial scoping call, the PE firm and portfolio company were introduced to a select few PE-grade GTM strategy consultants that specialized in evaluating growth in the financial services sector. The client selected their ideal choice, and the PE firm was able to confidently drive an excellent outcome without wasting or cost. With the strategy consultant’s guidance, the portfolio company was able to implement an organic strategy to increase revenue and grow the company.

Operating Partners’ Forum Recap | September 2022

September 19, 2022 Delaney Walker

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 challenges and opportunities in the face of a recession.

These forums are for PE Operating Executives only and follow Chatham House Rules, so listed below are high-level takeaways only. If you are an operating executive in private equity and interested in joining fellow Operating Executives during our next Operating Partners’ Forum, RSVP here.

Acceleration is crucial during the current state of the economy:

  • Senses are heightened as a result of the current business world dynamics and past markets.
  • A number of the activities that would traditionally start during the post-investment closing period, now initiate before an investment is closed. For example, human capital searches are being brought into diligence and board of advisors are being formed pre-close.
  • PE firms are quickly looking to build strong platforms where they can do complimentary add-on acquisitions at lower valuations. BluWave has seen this ring true through the increased need for buyside M&A advisors and merger integration advisors.

Agility & data analytics:

  • An increasing focus on data and analytics allows PE firms to be extremely agile and change with the times.
  • A big piece of ensuring agility is a result of implementing data & analytics is making sure that the data is placed in the right hands, one of which is portco CFOs.
  • Many PE firms are still at the early stages of deploying advanced analytics and are looking to first build proof points at a smaller number of portcos. BluWave is therefore receiving growing demand for 3rd party data analytics advisors that can help expertly and effectively build out these early efforts.

We thoroughly enjoyed getting to gather with PE Operating Executives to discuss these current topics. We’d be happy to connect you to the PE-grade, exact-fit, third-party resources you need to assist you in this pressurized market, just contact us here.

Learn more about how we can specifically help Op Execs here.