recently reported that halfway through 2011, private equity activity decelerated due to the European debt crisis, the U.S. deficit reduction gridlock, and increasing worry about the slow global economic recovery. Overall for the year, the total number of deals came in at 914, which was a decline of just 1%.
Additionally, Ernst & Young pointed out that fundraising fell by 7% in 2011 and obtaining financing continued to be difficult. In an effort to regain momentum, private equity firms will continue to rigorously evaluate hundreds of deals over the next few months. As they only select a few deals to invest in, though, it is critical for private equity firms to have a real-time, accurate, concrete, and unifying view of their strategic connections and deal flow progress.
Centralized Data Means Quicker Decisions
Since timing is of the essence, private equity deal team members demand detailed and cohesive data in a centralized system, such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, which facilitates faster and more efficient analysis of data and better communication with internal and external parties. No longer can private equity firms refuse to bridge the silos of multiple spreadsheets, databases, and legacy applications. Failure to gain immediate insights on a deal’s status and history can result in uninformed and delayed decision making and a lost opportunity to a more agile competitor.
Leveraging our expertise in numerous capital markets CRM implementations, Customer Effective offers a customized version of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 that is geared specifically towards the needs of private equity shops. Known as Customer Effective: Private Equity, this tailored industry solution is a central, collaborative, and comprehensive relationship management platform and productivity enhancer. It incorporates workflows and best practices that are designed to streamline fundraising initiatives, deal acquisition activities, and investor relations correspondence.
For example, existing LPs, committed LPs, and institutional and high net worth prospects can all be classified and grouped into unique views and marketing lists. Any fund news, capital call notices, and fund launch announcements can be planned, prepared, and distributed in bulk to the appropriate segmented target audience within CRM. Moreover, replies and returned documentation, such as subscription agreements, can be tracked and linked to the applicable investor contact or company record in CRM. Furthermore, automatic email reminder notifications or internal to-do’s can be generated to ensure optimal interest, timely responses, and diligent follow-up.
Guided Processes Built for Private Equity
The streamlining and automation of many of these enterprise communication tasks reduces the administrative burden on employees and frees them up for more prospecting, networking, and fundraising activities. Upon completion of the various fundraising, client marketing, and client service campaigns, reports can even be run to assess their performance, success rates, and actual impact to the firm.
Other highlights of the fundraising, deal flow, and investor relations management functionality of the Customer Effective: Private Equity CRM solution, along with a brief demonstration, can be found in our following new .
Familiar Tools for Best-In-Class User Adoption
Private equity employees also often rave about how CRM 2011 is embedded within Microsoft Office Outlook. The familiar and intuitive interface, straightforward screen navigation, and tight Microsoft Office integration with Excel, Word, and SharePoint results in faster user adoption and enhanced user productivity for Partners, Principals, Directors, Associates, and Analysts. Overall, CRM 2011’s results in a quicker learning curve for all the users, which leads to lower training costs and a faster deployment time. Private equity firms also value that CRM 2011 offers enterprise implementation flexibility. It can accommodate and meet a firm’s preference for both an on-premise or hosted in the cloud deployment model. As an online tool, CRM 2011 is accessible anywhere, even via mobile devices, which is especially convenient for frequent travelers.
Please visit to read more about our vast experience in the private equity arena and our implementation methodology. We can certainly share more CRM best practices in depth and provide a roadmap for your firm to better organize your deal flow opportunities and more quickly convert investor prospects into limited partners.
Post by: Kevin Wessels, Customer Effective,
