At FinServ Consulting, we take pride in helping our clients leverage technology to unlock their potential. Recently, we completed an exciting project: developing a custom Salesforce application tailored specifically for Private Equity (PE) firms. Our solution focuses on supporting PE funds in two critical areas: Investor Relations (“IR”) / Fundraising and Deal-Side Decision Support and Operations. 

We have worked with many PE Funds who have become frustrated with their CRM system. Whether it is an enterprise-level CRM system like Salesforce or a specific industry CRM solution like DealCloud or Backstop, it is a common complaint to hear the client say, “Our CRM does not support our business as we need it to.” 

In this post, we will highlight a case study in which our client was using Salesforce, the world’s number one CRM system, but in a way that was holding back their business during a critical fundraising time. This presented an enormous challenge as FinServ had to do the work with relatively limited input from the client. FinServ had to run with many aspects of key business decisions based on our extensive experience in Private Equity. 

The Challenge 

Private Equity firms face unique operational challenges. The complex nature of managing investor relationships, tracking fundraising efforts, and coordinating deal-related activities often involves a mix of disconnected tools and manual processes. These inefficiencies can slow down operations and lead to missed opportunities. Our client, a leading PE firm, approached us to streamline their workflows and centralize their data into one cohesive platform. 

Applying the Right Salesforce Solution to a Private Equity Challenge 

One of the first things we did with the client, an existing Salesforce customer, was to ensure they were using all the best Salesforce modules for each key area of their business. 

We determined their LP Requests were a perfect use case for Salesforce’s customer service platform, Service Cloud. Leveraging Service Cloud’s queueing ability and the core features of Case Management would make their management of key Investor Support much more effective and efficient. Automatically routing certain LP Requests to Finance, for instance, would save considerable time and make their responses to their investors much timelier. 

The client also licensed Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud, but they were not using the CRM Synchronization feature with Salesforce CRM, which led to them having to create Email lists manually. We set up the synchronization, allowing them to use sophisticated queries against the data they had on each Investor and their Organization to make lists to send out any Fund or Investor-related correspondence quickly, eliminating all the manual steps from the previous approach. 

1. Streamlining Fundraising and Investor Relations: 

• • Centralized Investor Contacts: The previous build created a set of custom objects to track contacts who required communications for regular LP Investments and Co-investments and separate objects to track Prospecting contacts.
  • To make this a more standard Salesforce solution, we eliminated the custom objects. Instead, we leveraged Related Contacts and Roles to define the standard Contact links to these Investors and Prospects.   
  • Enhance the linkage from Fund Commitments to their Fundraising Campaigns Opening up to Future use of AI Features: There was inconsistency and confusion between the Opportunities and the actual Investments in the Fund. There was no easy way to link all the activities involved in the Sales process to the ultimate Investments in the Fund. The client was losing priceless insights into the knowledge of how their Sales processes were operating.  
  • We cleaned up the relationship by providing a Convert to Commitment button and workflow in the Opportunity object, automatically linking the new Commitment object to the originating Fundraising Opportunity. This ensured that the client would have powerful data and reporting to understand their Fundraising successes and misses. Now, the client is perfectly set up to take advantage of Salesforce’s new AI features like Agentforce.   

2. Enhance Deal Side Operations: 

• • Deal Tracking and Pipeline Management and Leveraging AI Again: The previous Deal process was not well managed in Salesforce as it was not user-friendly and had added several fields to track statuses outside of the Stages, which created a massive amount of inconsistencies in the data and the Deal Team’s ability to see which deals closed and which deals were passed on.
  • We introduced the Salesforce Paths to the client and worked with them to identify the key fields at each Deal Stage that should be highlighted for easy and quick updates. We also created guidance for the Deal Team associates at each Stage so they were clear on the steps they needed to take for data and process at each stage. We removed all the extra Deal Status fields, consolidating them into the Standard Salesforce Stages, ensuring that every deal would end up either Closed and Converted to a Portfolio Company or Passed on. 
  • All this work allowed us to create Streamlined Pipeline reporting for the client, turning a lengthy and data-challenging process into a simple and efficient process. In addition, this eliminated a huge number of Deals that remained in an active status even though they had been passed on. We helped the client clean their data so they could use all the past Deal history in the future to better understand the aspects of each Deal, which will lead to more efficient assessment of future Deals through the leveraging of Salesforce’s AI capabilities. 
  • Data Cleanup and Workflow Automation: The deal process for the client required a lot of data cleanup as, over time, some bad habits formed in the operational aspects of their process. The naming of Deals was highly inconsistent and manual. In addition, the creation and linkage of the Deal Target Organizations to the Deals were poorly maintained. Often, the Target Organizations were left with very little data, so no real value could be gained by the team in their future assessment of similar Deals or acknowledging when a Deal for the same Target Organization was being presented again. 
  • By implementing a strong set of Data Validations and integrated workflows, including Wizards for the creation of New Deals and Co-Investments, FinServ was able to automate the Deal naming process to ensure consistency in all aspects of the Deal and Target Organization data. We also added several new validations to ensure that key data on the Deals and the Target Organizations would be forced at certain key stages of the process to leverage the data for future AI insights and intelligence. 
  • Linking the Deal Advisory Side of the Business: One key area the client really wanted to get a handle on was the Buy-Side, Financing, and Sell-Side Advisory support they were receiving from their many service providers. The client needed to understand better the Fees they were paying to each firm and the number of Proposals each firm was providing to start getting a handle on who their best service providers were for each area so they could be more efficient. 
  • Again, FinServ was able to combine our deep industry knowledge and Salesforce expertise to come up with a set of Stages and Fields to use one Custom Object with three unique record types to cover the Sell-Side, Financing, and Buy-Side Proposal processes. By using specific fields tailored to each Proposal Type, we made this a highly efficient process for the client to track the thousands of proposals they manage each year. 

Key Features of the Application 

We will not be able to cover all the feature enhancements we made to the client’s Private Equity system in this blog post as we implemented so many enhancements and time-saving solutions. Instead, we will highlight a few more areas we focused on for the client and leave other areas for future posts in more business-specific posts. 

• Custom Home Pages: We focused on creating a tailored Application for the IR / Fundraising team and another for the Deal Team. By doing this, we ensure that each team is not distracted by Objects and Data that are not part of their core day-to-day work. 

• • • Salesforce with Custom Links – We used custom links on the Home Page to provide each team with a curated set of Reports that they use most often. By providing this right in the home page it allows the teams to get to the information they need without having to search for it or make multiple clicks.  
    • Pushing key charts to the Main Page – In Addition we placed certain key charts and graphs up to the home page surfacing key data like for the Deal Team analysis on their Intermediaries and for the Fundraising team key data on their Prospecting Funnel. 
    • Key Lists:Finally we leveraged Salesforce’s out of the box feature of showing certain lists on the Home Page to again reduce clicks and give users access to the specific records they most likely want to see right from the Home Page. 
• Advanced Reporting: Leveraging FinServ’s vast experience working with the top Private Equity funds and industry-focused CRM systems, we were able to create a set of custom Dashboards to highlight the key areas that the top PE Funds are focused on for the IR / Fundraising and Deal areas. Surfacing data like their Top Investors and the Geography of Top Prospects are just a couple of examples of the Dashboards we have created. On the Deal side, we have created charts to show the top Intermediaries who have sourced the best Deals by Stage and the Active Deals by EBITDA range. 

• Highly Customized Lightning Record Pages – Finally, we created a set of highly customized Lightning Record Pages for every object which are used to display relevant content and make entry easier including:  

• • • Single Related Lists & Filtered Views – We used the Single Related Lists to ensure that key related Lists were brought to the main page of each Object in addition to the record details. For many of these related lists we created special Filters to further customize the data shown that would be most important to each team member.
    • Compact Layouts – We created custom compact Layouts for each object to ensure that the Highlight Panel for each object provided the most crucial data for each object that the business would be most interested in. 
    • Custom Tabs – Linked to the Single Related Lists, we also created Custom Tabs on each Page to provide key sets of data grouped that would greatly enhance the user experience and efficiency of many regular day-to-day analyses. 

The custom Salesforce application has transformed our client’s operations. Highlights include: 

• • • A 35% reduction in time spent on manual investor relations tasks, freeing up resources for strategic initiatives.
    • Improved deal closure rates due to a 20% faster due diligence process enabled by automated workflows. 

Why FinServ Consulting? 

Our deep expertise in financial services and technology made us the ideal partner for this project. We understand the nuances of Private Equity operations and Salesforce’s capabilities, allowing us to deliver a solution that aligns perfectly with our client’s needs. 

Looking Ahead 

This project is a testament to Salesforce’s power when customized to meet industry-specific requirements. At FinServ Consulting, we are excited to continue helping PE firms and other financial services organizations optimize their operations and achieve their goals. 

If you are a Private Equity fund with an underperforming implementation of Salesforce FinServ can help. In this scenario, we can implement our PE Model to help turn around your key CRM-related business processes and get your team working efficiently and effectively. If you are on an underperforming Industry CRM, FinServ can help fix your existing CRM issues or port you over to our Salesforce PE Solution. Over the past 20 years, FinServ has worked on all the alternative asset management industry-specific CRM systems. Whatever your situation, FinServ has the expertise and independence to implement the best solution for your individual Fund. 

If your firm is looking to streamline its workflows, improve investor relations, or enhance deal operations, contact FinServ Consulting. Let us help you build a tailored solution that drives results. To learn more about FinServ Consulting’s services, please contact us at info@finservconsulting.com or (646) 603-3799.