How PAI Partners maximizes efficiency and transparency with custom dashboards

PAI Partners is a European private equity firm headquartered in Paris, France. The firm focuses on making controlling investments in leveraged buyouts of mid- to large-sized European companies which are leading brands in their market. PAI Partners invests according to a long-term, industrial and transformational approach in five core sectors; namely business services, food and consumer, general industrials, healthcare, and retail and distribution.

The Challenge

Prior to implementing DealCloud, the firm was using a proprietary web-based portal to manage their deal pipeline, and leveraged Microsoft Outlook to manage contact information for clients and prospects. This technology was adequate, however, they recognized that if they wanted to further accelerate business, perform more advanced analytics, and operate more effectively, they needed a more powerful industry-specific solution that could meet their business needs. When it came time to formalize the deal and relationship management functions at the firm, the team at PAI Partners knew they needed a system that was built for their specific purposes.

Implementation

For PAI Partners, the overall goal in implementing DealCloud was to design and implement an effective solution to support the firm’s specific business needs, maximize organizational goals, and achieve user adoption. The DealCloud team of private equity experts configured the platform with a variety of configurations, including configurable dashboard objects, filtered views, data lists, and in-platform dashboard reports.

The DealCloud and PAI teams collaborated in a thoughtful and creative way to maximize the value of DealCloud for the firm. Due to DealCloud’s existing knowledge of the private equity workflow, the PAI team was able to quickly move past the basic configuration of the platform and develop enhanced functionality that was specific to their business needs.

The DealCloud implementation team configured the platform to enable the team at PAI to be more self-sufficient when using the platform. The highly intuitive configuration tools used by the DealCloud team are also available to PAI directly, allowing them to make continued enhancements, without the delay and cost associated with scoping additional work. Notwithstanding, the DealCloud Client Success managers are always on hand for more complex or time-consuming additions as part of the ongoing subscription. By implementing DealCloud, the team at PAI Partners was able to consolidate critical information and business processes into a single system of record in just three months.

DealCloud has been instrumental in helping us to organise and synthesise information across a wide range of sources. We are now able to better leverage our institutional knowledge, which increases the speed of our decision making and allows us to answer more complex problems.

Maximilian Harrington, Principal, PAI PARTNERS

The solution

It was important that PAI Partners found a solution and technology partner that understood the private equity industry and was able to support them as their business needs grew and evolved. Given the firmwide imperative to get the system up and running, it was crucial to avoid solutions where a large amount of time would be spent educating the IT partner on the nature of the private equity workflow. When all of this was considered, the team at PAI decided to implement DealCloud’s deal and relationship management solution, which is tailored specifically to the actions and needs of private equity dealmakers. The DealCloud platform consolidated critical information and business processes into a single system of record. Now, DealCloud serves as the one secure location for all of the following:

  • Deal Pipeline Management: Leveraging DealCloud, the team at PAI is able to create dashboards and reports that deliver a full picture of each transaction as it moves through every stage of the deal pipeline.
  • Reporting: DealCloud’s reporting functionalities have enabled PAI to dynamically create custom reports including weekly automated deal sheets, pipeline reporting and prospecting, and tearsheets, saving as much as 100 hours per week that can be re-allocated to other key activities.
  • Deal Execution: Using DealCloud, PAI can track all actionable items, relationships, counterparties, and which team members are staffed on every deal. With DealCloud, they can automate task assignment and alerts to ensure that all teams are executing on key transaction-related responsibilities, which decreases the administrative burden placed on dealmakers.
  • Relationship Management: By implementing DealCloud, PAI can better manage the integrity of its relationship data. The firm now hosts all clients and prospective clients’ contact information, amongst other data, in one secure and cloud-based platform that can be accessed from anywhere.
  • Resourcing: DealCloud is able to track time spent on various transactions and firmwide projects in order to ensure appropriate resource allocation on priority targets, while also identifying areas for future optimization of team structure.

Partnering for success

  • Implementation and data migration services
  • User training through bespoke sessions with Implementation and Account Management teams
  • Dedicated Account Management and Client Success teams
  • End-user self-servicing reporting

Executive Summary

  • 270+ dashboards created by the team
  • Central source of information for all transactions
  • All investment professionals now actively using DealCloud
  • Maximized efficiency, increased transparency, and enhanced collaboration
  • Acknowledged as an integral part of all business processes at the firm