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Helping the middle market grow is what this private equity firm is all about. They know that each company is different, so they're laser-focused on developing strategies tailored to the business they're investing in. Along with its sector expertise and collective experience in the industry, driving over 100 investments, the firm knows how to support strong management teams that benefit from its approach.
2021 was a record-breaking year for M&A transactions. Global deal values hit $5 trillion. In the United States alone, the deal value rose to $2.6 trillion — double the amount in 2020. This private equity firm was no different.
After experiencing an uptick in M&A transactions for its manufacturing sector, the firm realized it needed to reevaluate its tools and processes to keep up with demand. But rather than pull team members from managing current transactions, the private equity firm wanted to onboard a subject matter expert to handle the strategic development of processes and tools.
Specifically, the private equity firm wanted someone to lead the FP&A team while working cross-functionally with other team members. Not only would this person be in charge of developing the processes and tools, but they would be expected to implement them across all locations and functions to allow for individual location reporting and seamless consolidations.
Most of the work involved the manufacturing product line analytics reporting, sales, and distribution. Because the firm wanted to complete this project in two months, finding someone as quickly as possible was a top priority. Knowing that taking the traditional approach of finding and onboarding an expert would take too long, the firm decided to explore on-demand talent acquisition as an approach.
With a clear picture of the person it wanted to onboard, the private equity firm set out to conduct research for on-demand talent acquisition platforms. After reviewing several vendors, the private equity firm decided to explore Graphite's independent talent network.
In the first meeting with Graphite's Account Executive (AE), the firm received a demo of the platform and a detailed view of the platform's expert network. The firm was surprised at the level and caliber of talent on Graphite, given that most worked with MBB and Big Four firms with over 12-15 years of experience.
Excited at the potential of finding the talent they needed to bring its vision to life, the firm set up a subsequent meeting to define the scope of work. Together with the AE, the firm discussed the specifics of the role, such as building and maintaining a dashboard and reports with key manufacturing performance indicators and performing multivariable sensitivity and trend analysis.
Understanding what the firm was searching for, the AE reviewed 24 candidates on the platform that best fit the firm's criteria. Of the 24, the AE narrowed down the list to nine potential candidates for the firm to interview using Graphite's video conferencing feature.
The selected expert? A highly effective interim CFO with a strong private equity background and M&A experience.
A meeting was created between the AE, the firm, the expert, and Graphite's Customer Success team to align on the scope of work, discuss any onboarding materials, and define the terms of success. With the initial meeting complete, the expert worked on developing the processes and tools needed to drive business growth.
The expert first connected with the team they would lead, learning key workflows, processes, and road bumps. They likewise connected with other team members to better understand how the FP&A department interacted with others to identify areas of improvement and where specific workflows could be streamlined.
Using the information gathered at the onset, the expert tackled how they could improve the manufacturing product line analytics reporting. This required them to:
With the manufacturing side complete, the expert moved on to the sales and distribution side:
Throughout the eight weeks, Graphite regularly checked in with the expert and the firm at key milestones to ensure the project was moving forward as planned. The firm was pleased with the level of expertise of Graphite's independent consultants and the ease of managing and paying them on the platform.
After experiencing an uptick in M&A transactions in its manufacturing sector, this private equity firm was looking for an FP&A expert to add additional bandwidth to its team. More specifically, it wanted someone adept at identifying areas of improvement and the ability to streamline multiple workflows. By engaging Graphite, the private equity firm was able to onboard an independent FP&A VP with extensive private equity and M&A experience.
Eager to onboard a team that could achieve results within six months, the client and their dedicated Graphite account manager partnered to determinze the specifications for each of the four roles. They were:
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