The private equity industry now has over $1 trillion in total assets under management according to the . Despite its vast size and influence, the industry is being forced to adjust to an extremely challenging environment, even excluding any mention of it in the context of a presidential election. Unlike prior years, though, today’s private equity firms can no longer count on favorable credit-market conditions. Since acquisitions are now less leveraged with bank debt, deal sizes and expected rate of returns are also generally lower. Additionally, many private equity firms will have to register with the SEC by the end of March as a result of Dodd-Frank. Moreover, the SEC has recently initiated an extensive examination of private equity firms’ fee structures and how they value and report on the performance of illiquid portfolio holdings. Besides facing more scrutiny from the SEC, private equity firms must also deal with more demanding investors and prospects. In fact, LPs are now seeking better governance, lower costs to invest, and more transparency about holdings and fees, as they want their stake to be more closely aligned with the interests of the GP. To overcome and offset these growing economic, credit market, regulatory, and investor-related challenges, many leading private equity firms are renewing their focus on operational improvement and investing in cutting-edge CRM technology.
To increase their efficiency levels, private equity managers are turning to the industry leading web-based Customer Effective: Private Equity CRM solution, which is built on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011. Tailored and pre-configured to the needs of the PE dealmaking community, this custom CRM 2011 platform helps streamline dealmaking evaluation and execution processes across the entire investment lifecycle, including deal origination, due diligence, negotiation, closing and acquisition, management and oversight, and eventual exit. The system allows for any interaction or correspondence with existing LPs, committed LPs, potential investors, portfolio companies, potential target companies, operating executives, turnaround specialists, referral sources, investment bankers, brokers, attorneys, accountants, fund administrators, and vendors to be easily collected, tracked, managed, monitored, and analyzed. Prior company representation and roles of key advisors, introducers, and influencers on previous deals can also be logged and related to multiple current and targeted deals.
As a result of having maximum visibility into all critical players, connections, activities, events, and outcomes of the various stages of a deal’s life-cycle, deal team members experience improved communication with clients and prospects as well as more efficient and effective collaboration with internal colleagues and strategic partners. No longer will the firm’s employees be slow to identify and miss out on prime opportunities, struggle to identify clients or prospects they have not spoken to in a very long time, or not have updated company and contact info for a primary lead source. Nor will the firm’s CRM users waste time aimlessly searching for sourcing information in multiple applications, be unable to find background on a historical meeting, fail to recognize the existence of an overriding side letter, or check in with a customer that a Partner just chatted with on the phone earlier in the day. With CRM as the central hub of the firm’s integrated infrastructure, data is more organized, accessible, open, transparent, and updated in real-time. Furthermore, on-demand reports can now be produced, shared, and distributed quickly to satisfy incoming inquiries from LPs, prospects, auditors, or regulators. Overall, the ease of use of locating and analyzing data in CRM and the ensuing newfound decline in time spent on administrative, data searching, and reporting tasks helps lowers the firm’s operating costs.
Please visit to learn more about how our pre-configured private equity CRM 2011 solution can equip and empower your deal team members to uncover and close more lucrative deals in a more efficient and cost-effective fashion.
Post by: Kevin Wessels, Customer Effective,
