Private Equity / Private Credit Industry
Actionable Strategies approaches projects for private equity clients by thinking and acting as investors do. The investment thesis in the company drives our work, which must occur at a rapid pace to match the investment horizon. Benefits we deliver:
♦ Revenue and growth acceleration
♦ Cost and financial performance improvement
♦ Market, customer, and multiple expansion
Portfolio Performance: Optimizing Operations and Technology
Actionable Strategies dramatically improves the performance of operating companies, improving cash flow and valuation. As a strategic partner and trusted advisor, we act as an extension of our clients, providing operating strategy, operational execution, and technology capabilities.
Pragmatism
Pragmatic approaches must effectively allocate capital, operating expense, human capital, time, and organizational capabilities. All these factors are valuable and their scarcity necessitates rationale business decisions about allocation and tradeoffs.
For some projects, scare resources provide leverage: financial resources of strategics, superior talent or proprietary technology, world class processes or operating models. We consider the unique attributes of companies juxtaposed with market conditions.
Measurable Impact
From transactions to transformations, measurably increasing portfolio value is Actionable Strategies’ fundamental goal. We focus on directionality and anticipated magnitude, predicted by situational awareness. Attending to the vital customer-facing and operational metrics delivers concrete impact.
For further details, please download the entire PDF document.
Approaches to Performance Optimization
When portfolio companies yield returns below expectations, experienced operators from Actionable Strategies can improve Value Creation. We identify specific opportunities for profitability and valuation, then develop a sustainable operating model to execute and foster future growth. During execution, we collaborate with portfolio companies, allowing them to gain the critical skills and knowledge to achieve self-sufficient growth.
Value Creation
Value creation opportunities are found across a spectrum of possibilities, specific to the portfolio company and market. As experienced operators who have worked with private equity and credit firms, Actionable Strategies rapidly delivers impactful results to portfolio companies.
Actionable Strategies combines proven approaches from past projects across industries with best practices. We maximize the value results from portfolio companies through our pragmatic approach to leveraging assets and abilities and limiting constraints.
Download the PDF for specific examples of our approaches to Value Creation.
Case Studies
This collection of case studies provides illustrative examples of our work in improving valuations and profitability by optimizing performance in operations and technology.
Applying decades of experience as operators, founders, and strategic investors, the consultants at Actionable Strategies have worked with the entire Private Equity Ecosystem.
Actionable Strategies provides Strategy, Operations, and Technology expertise gained from a broad set of industries. We demonstrably improve the performance of portfolios, rollups, and portfolio companies.
Technology and Telecommunications including data, hardware, software, services, and cybersecurity
Financial Services including Banking, Brokerage, Capital Markets, Digital Payments, Insurance, and Wealth Management
Smart Cities, Smart Campuses, and Smart Energy in both private and public sectors
Real Estate including investment and asset management in commercial & industrial, residential, and specialty properties
Manufacturing: discrete, continuous and engineer-to-order / Chemicals
Consumer Packaged Goods, Retailing, Online and Omnichannel Merchandising
Healthcare Services, Pharmaceuticals, and Medical Devices
Company Background 
The client is a wealth management technology and data aggregation firm that provides comprehensive financial reporting and data management solutions to private wealth advisors, ultra-high-net-worth individuals, and family offices. Real-time insights, customized reporting, and streamlined portfolio management are provided for all holdings including private and illiquid asset classes. The firm is owned by private equity investors.
Markets:
Financial Technology,
Data Services Provider
Customers:
Financial Services
Business Problem 
The negative P&L impact of providing services was significant and a highly visible problem for the CEO and Board.
Implementing the company’s technology at clients and providing ongoing services were both inefficient. Compounding the problem was the lack of process, depending on individual efforts to plan and execute.
Unprofitable implementation projects hurt overall firm profitability
Negative client satisfaction ratings prompted post-sale discounting and diminished up-selling
High employee turnover in implementation roles drove up staffing costs and compounded the problem
Solution Delivered
Efficient processes were designed to implement the software, acquire data, design client-tailored reporting and analytics, and transition to daily operations.
An implementation playbook was created to attain profitability through uniform and faster implementation.
Standardized pricing model
Templatized project plan
Formalized service delivery model
Implementation managers were trained by jointly standing up new customers and automating data flows.
Business Results 
Accelerated implementation, on-time completion, and reduced error rates drove improvement of targeted business metrics.
Profitable projects increased overall profitability
Improved client satisfaction
Reduced and predictable implementation times
Stabilization of workforce with greater productivity
Company Background 
The client is a rollup of women’s apparel brands. Premium brands were rolled up by a PE firm which placed the headquarters in New York City. The company had a presence in major clothing retailers across the U.S. who sold the luxury to mid-market apparel. Manufacturing was expanded to over 100 factories across the globe.
Markets:
Apparel,
Manufacturing
Customers:
Retail
Business Problem 
Synergies were not being realized from the rollup strategy. Sales were not increasing as anticipated, and operations grew less efficient. Issues inside the portfolio company:
Fractured sales processes caused missed sales targets as growth could not be achieved in any of the divisions
Operational ineffectiveness such as manual available-to-promise processes led to lost revenue from stockouts and reduced future orders
Lack of situational awareness as duplicative IT systems and manual processes were still being used
Political infighting over operational processes and technology hampered consolidation
Human capital deficits meant that some employees were not effective in a larger organization
Solution Delivered
Without a vested interest in legacy people, processes or technology, Actionable Strategies was able to drive business integration on behalf of the PE firm.
Consolidation of sales processes to enable salespeople to serve broader customer bases
Development of a Web front-end to the core ERP system to facilitate order entry and visibility into orders and shipping status, automating many manual processes
Consolidation of IT systems and reduction in IT cost
Single enterprise data model incorporating all divisional information needs, facilitating accurate and timely reporting and forecasts across the company
Business Results 
Driving business integration by consolidating sales processes, operations, and technology enabled the PE firm to improve and forecast financial performance.
Increased sales performance across divisions
Margin improvement from more efficient operations
Decreased costs to scale up via further acquisitions onto the rollup platform
Company Background 
The client was founded in 2001 to provide human capital management solutions. The customer base spanned small and mid-sized companies to large enterprises. Cloud software solutions included benefits administration, compensation management, time and vacation management, and timesheets.
Markets:
Human Capital Management, Software-as-a-Service
Customers:
Small to Mid-sized Businesses,
Enterprises
Business Problem 
Sales growth was flat for many years and new products were not being delivered. The company was turning into a lifestyle business with little chance of providing an exit for the founder and employee shareholders.
The company had no strategic direction or plan
Lead generation was limited to organic search
Salespeople relied on individual effort with no visibility into the sales funnel or metrics
Product development was informal with developers adding incremental features to existing products
The technology platform and architecture were antiquated with the monolithic applications unable to integrate with modern platforms
Solution Delivered
Actionable Strategies provided expertise in strategy, marketing, sales, and product development. The client asked for a Fractional CEO to resuscitate the company.
Strategy development charted a path to acquire new customers and achieve revenue growth
Digital marketing was initiated for lead generation
Sales and client service processes were formalized to increase close rates and improve customer retention
Product roadmap added new features demanded by the market including Data Analytics
Product Development was formalized using Agile software development across the U.S. and India
Technology platforms were upgraded including REST APIs and SOC2 Type 2 audited Cloud infrastructure
Business Results 
Strategic efforts had an immediate tactical effect in saving the largest customer (25% of revenues) from leaving. Implementation of the strategy achieved the desired outcomes.
Growth in revenue and margins from new products and reduced operating cost
Successful exit for the founder in 2025 via sale to a strategic investor
Company Background
The client is a rollup of Registered Investment Advisors serving high-net-worth and ultra-high-net-worth individuals and families. Portfolio companies offer investment advisory, financial and tax planning, estate planning, and family office solutions.
Markets:
Financial Services
Customers:
High Net Worth, UHNW,
Family Offices
Business Problem 
One of the high growth portfolio companies found that many of the manual processes became unwieldy and costly. Many of the processes required both data entry and checking by partners and experts on staff. While costly, these manual efforts still resulted in errors.
The firm sought to reduce the significant cost, time and effort required to manually process data from custodians who ran vastly different systems and operating models.
Trade activity
Fixed income returns
Charitable donations
Illiquid assets
Solution Delivered
Actionable Strategies automated back-office processes by analyzing current workflows, points of failure, and levels of effort. Automation was developed and rolled out.
Collaborated with key custodians such as Fidelity and Schwab to obtain data feeds to replace paper statements
Created data models to ingest data and consolidate it across clients and trading tax lots
Developed automated data transformations to harmonize data for client-specific use
Created automated processing of data into back-office systems
Safeguarded processes with automatic quality control checks and audit reports
Business Results 
The portfolio company realized the expected benefits which were all recurring. Process automation was propagated across the portfolio.
Eliminated cost from personnel entering data
Reduced processing times
Eliminated quality issues from data entry errors
Reduced senior management oversight requirements and cost
Company Background
This early-stage company sought to change media planning and buying via detailed purchasing behavior at the household level. Advertisers by a large universe of demographic factors. They created a proprietary algorithm with promising results when run against sample data.
Markets:
Media,
IoT/Big Data Provider
Customers:
Advertisers,
Broadcasters
Business Problem 
The Asset Management division acquired a quantitative trading firm to expand the services offered to institutional clients. The trading firm operated very much in startup mode with ad-hoc process and few controls.
Before they were acquired, the quant traders were successful but ran their desk using free and inexpensive software, some of which was no longer supported. The bank required a more secure and scalable solution to meet the demands of its sophisticated global client base.
Enterprise grade software
Secure infrastructure
Compliant processes
Retention of trading data and research
Solution Delivered
Initially, embedded consultants helped the client navigate business issues related to launching a new product. Subsequently the significant technical challenges posed by the volume and frequency of data were addressed.
Product Management: Roadmap, Development Plan, Budget
Operating Model: Scalable model with Lean processes
Lean Product Development: Agile product development resulting a predictable and rapid releases
Data Management: Development of a data model, and ingestion and quality management software
Predictive Analytics: Purchasing effect of ads on specific programs at specific times, by numerous demographics enabled targeted media buying with greater yields.
Business Results 
The client successfully launched and enabled advertisers to determine which ads led to purchases. Predictive capabilities benefited both advertisers and broadcasters.
Another financing round was secured, led by Intel
Rapid growth resulted, leading to an exit via sale to a large media company
Company Background 
This global bank has established itself in the U.S. as a prominent corporate and investment bank, delivering strategic solutions, consulting, and counterparty services to a sophisticated client base comprised of corporations, financial institutions, pensions, hedge funds, and public sector entities
Markets:
Financial Services
Customers:
Global Institutional Investors
Business Problem 
PE investors and media partners were concerned about viability, and development and growth risks. The CEO was not experienced in getting products to market or working with complex technology. Key challenges:
No plans to turn prototype into products
Lack of internal experience in building or scaling organizations and products
Young CTO never built a development organization
Big Data: real-time clickstreams, high-volume purchases, complex and varying data models
Lack of operational planning and experience in managing technology and data assets
Consulting expertise was required in media, real-time data, communications, massive data sets, enterprise architecture, advertising, product management, operations, and IT.
Solution Delivered
Actionable Strategies developed a verifiable process in a secure environment that allowed the traders to maintain speed in developing, testing, and executing quantitative trading strategies in fast moving markets.
Turned ad-hoc processes into efficient end-to-end processes on an enterprise class platform
Developed code to transform data from the legacy system to the new Cloud-based platform
Seamlessly migrated data consisting of tens of thousands of linked pages, spreadsheets, and data tables avoiding rekeying and manual data entry by traders
Met all bank audit requirements for governance, controls, and technology
Business Results 
The quantitative trading desk continued to trade without disruption or manual efforts to migrate to the new operating model.
All trading ideas, data, and research were preserved
Global scaling was enabled
Security and compliance needs were fulfilled
Migration costs were minimal
Company Background
The client pursues acquisitions to strengthen its core human capital management and business process outsourcing offerings, expand into new markets, and integrate advanced technologies. Acquisitions are targeted to align with its business model and integrate easily, ensuring long-term value creation. Revenues are $19B from 1.1 million clients in over 140 countries.
Markets:
Human Capital Management
Business Process Outsourcing
Customers:
Enterprises
SMBs
Business Problem 
To remain competitive with new entrants into the market, the company wanted to provide more advanced capabilities as part of their current product sets. Consolidating data and providing coherent data analytics across the acquired and in-house product sets was not progressing and the company fell behind. Analysts noted incumbents and startups were delivering better products.
The client required the expertise and capabilities of Actionable Strategies to advance internal capacity:
Competitive Analysis and Customer Requirements
Product Strategy and Roadmap Creation
Product Management and Software Development
Data Modeling and Information Management
Solution Delivered
Actionable Strategies developed a verifiable process in a secure environment that allowed the traders to maintain speed in developing, testing, and executing quantitative trading strategies in fast moving markets.
Turned ad-hoc processes into efficient end-to-end processes on an enterprise class platform
Developed code to transform data from the legacy system to the new Cloud-based platform
Seamlessly migrated data consisting of tens of thousands of linked pages, spreadsheets, and data tables avoiding rekeying and manual data entry by traders
Met all bank audit requirements for governance, controls, and technology
Business Results 
The product was a market success, generating accretive revenue with significant profit margins.
Upon launch, the client received the “Top HR Product” award by HR Executive Magazine
The client immediately realized sales and testimonial customers from the enterprise segment
Fully transitioned Agile software development and automated testing processes to internal departments
Company Background
The client was established to turn Yangon, Myanmar into a Smart City by first modernizing the power grid via Smart Grid technologies. The company is owned by a consortium of power companies and foreign investors. Private Equity has enabled market-oriented reforms and smart technology deployment across Asia.
Markets:
Smart City,
Smart Energy
Customers:
Global Investors,
Emerging Market Government
Business Problem 
Providing a reliable and stable source of power is an ongoing problem in Myanmar which projected economic growth will exacerbate. Over 40% of Myanmar’s population lacks access to electricity from the power grid. In rural areas, where most people live, over two-thirds of households rely on candles, kerosene, and batteries.
The client required help from an international consulting firm to obtain required ministerial approvals and acquire project financing. Actionable Strategies provided:
Smart City and Energy Industry Expertise
Strategy Development Capabilities
Project Finance and Modeling Expertise
Successful Past Performance and Project Credentials in Asia
Solution Delivered
Actionable Strategies developed the Smart Grid Strategy including quantified benefits, risk, and financial projections. The strategy assessed the GDP, foreign direct investment, and global trading impacts of the initiative. The rapid growth in demand, aging infrastructure, power quality problems, and tariff structure were all strategic considerations and financial model inputs.
Actionable Strategies developed the written proposal and formal presentation to the key stakeholders in Myanmar.
Ministry of Electricity and Energy (MOEE)
Yangon and Electricity Supply Corporations, the two state-owned power distribution companies
Business Results 
Presentation of the strategy and proposal led to approvals to implement a Smart Grid as the first phase in creating a Smart City in Yangon, Myanmar.
MOEE and the distribution companies approved the project and Smart City roadmap
“Notice To Proceed” was issued by the Government of Myanmar
MOEE granted a bankable Concession Agreement to enable Project Finance
Two days before Win Khine, Minister of MOEE, was scheduled to announce the deal, the coup d’état froze all infrastructure projects in Myanmar.
Company Background
The client provides software to wealth managers for consolidating complex, multi-asset class portfolio data from various custodians, institutions, and valuation sources. Cloud services are provided for data aggregation, integration, and reporting. This enables wealth managers to gain a holistic view of their clients’ holdings and ultimately deliver more informed and personalized advice. Private equity investors control the company.
Markets:
Financial Technology
Customers:
Wealth Management Clients
Business Problem 
The client was providing its software to Wealth Managers through an application installed on desktop PCs. The technology model posed numerous business challenges.
Wealth Managers viewed the client technology as old, and embraced competitive Software-as-a-Service models for their convenience and lower operating cost
Lack of integration to mission critical platforms such as CRM limited the use and value of the Wealth Management software, impacting sales
Development of additional functionality was increasing cost and complexity for the client
Solution Delivered
Actionable Strategies provided the client with a solution that delivered robust functionality while containing expenses as the customer base scaled up. The technical solution was embedded into Salesforce.com, the leading CRM platform.
User Experience design to provide a seamless and unified experience that ties Wealth Management clients to their consolidated assets and reports.
Architecture to embed client technology into containers that can integrate with other platforms
Design and Software Development, integrating Salesforce.com at the application and data layers
Business Results
The integration with CRM proved a commercial and technical success.
Existing customers with Salesforce.com saw immediate benefits, reducing retention risks.
New customer acquisition was improved based upon more seamless and robust Wealth Management functionality.
The success of the solution prompted the client to pursue integration with other vendors serving specific Wealth Management needs.