Examples of completed projects: Private Equity/Venture Capital

Private equity and venture capital companies use my services because they respect my ability to get through to the decision makers and the fact that I am totally discrete. For those reasons I have been employed in sectors outside my usual areas of expertise including pharmaceuticals and shipping.
Some examples of completed projects:

• Customer satisfaction surveys: pre-investment. A VC company was considering investing in an MBO. It wanted to test customer loyalty in advance of making an investment in the company. In agreement with the target’s senior management, I interviewed 20 of the company’s 25 largest customers to determine their views on the company. In particular l asked about:
• Current and planned expenditure with the company (customer loyalty).
• Performance against the competition (benchmarking).
• Service problem areas.
• Trends in the quality of the service.
• Customer satisfaction surveys: post-investment. A private equity company had acquired an underperforming company. It asked me to confirm its views on the company’s main weaknesses. To achieve this, I completed 50 in-depth interviews with a carefully structured sample of customers. The key areas investigated were:
• Service problem areas and how these could be rectified.
• Performance against the competition (benchmarking).
• Trends in the quality of the service and the reasons for those trends.
• Forecast changes in the customers’ requirements and how the company could best meet those changes.
• Market research: pre-investment. A private equity company was considering an investment in a specialised services company. I was asked to speak to a number of current and potential customers to determine the trends in the outsourcing of that particular service and to gain a feel for the performance of the proposed acquisition. This was achieved without ever specifically mentioning either the target’s or my client’s identity.

Market research: post-investment. A private equity company was already a substantial player in the waste management market. It was considering a substantial bolt on acquisition, which would greatly improve its recycling capabilities. I was asked to complete 50 interviews with major waste collectors and transfer station operators as well as with waste producers and legislators. In particular I was asked to determine the key trends in recycling and the proposed acquisition’s perceived capability to satisfy those trends.