The data blind spots that cost you at exit begin well before close.
Paragon Shift partners with private equity firms across the full investment lifecycle from operational due diligence through the 100-day plan and into ongoing value creation. We build the data and analytics infrastructure that sharpens the investment thesis, protects hold-period performance, and strengthens your position at exit.
Operational data assessment & digital risk scoring
Stage 02 First 100 Days
Rapid visibility, KPI alignment & early EBITDA wins
Stage 03 Ongoing Value Creation
Scalable analytics, AI maturity & exit readiness
The Numbers You Can’t Afford to Ignore
83%
of PE firms say digital transformation is important for future portfolio profitability.
81%
of firms that invested in digital transformation in 2024 specifically prioritized data analytics.
88%
of PE firms already use AI to appraise investments, with 65% applying it directly in due diligence.
84%
of PE firms plan to increase digital and data investment over the next two years across their portfolio companies.
(Source: PwC Private Equity Report, 2024)
Operational Risk Compounds Across Every Stage of the Deal
Private equity firms are under increasing pressure from both LPs and the market to demonstrate operational rigor. Longer hold periods, compressed exit windows, and more sophisticated buyers during secondary sales have raised the floor on what constitutes credible value creation.
Yet many portcos are still running on fragmented reporting, manually assembled board decks, and data environments inherited from pre-acquisition systems. The result: inconsistent numbers, slow decision cycles, and limited visibility, exactly the conditions that erode negotiating leverage at exit.
According to BCG research, private equity firms that build AI capabilities on strong digital foundations see materially higher returns and faster time to value. The foundation comes first. That is where we begin.
Operational and financial diligence are table stakes. What most Investment Committee (IC) packages miss is a clear read on the target’s data maturity, reporting reliability, and the realistic cost of closing the analytics gap post-close. We provide that read quickly, without burdening management.
What Operating Partners Are Up Against
Compressed timelines leave limited room for deep operational assessment beyond the financial model.
Data is scattered across ERP systems, spreadsheets, and legacy platforms with no single source of truth.
Management reporting is often backward-looking and manually assembled, a signal of larger structural issues.
AI readiness and automation potential are rarely quantified, leaving upside on the table in the IC narrative.
Hidden tech debt can materially impact post-close integration costs and timelines.
What Our Diligence Engagement Delivers
A structured operational data assessment, completed in 2–3 weeks in parallel with financial and commercial due diligence.
A scored view of data maturity, reporting reliability, and AI readiness with quantified costs to close each gap post-close.
Identification of value creation levers, including automation, pricing analytics, and working capital before close.
Cleaner EBITDA bridge assumptions and a stronger IC narrative, grounded in verified operational data.
An early-stage 100-day roadmap, so operational priorities are sequenced and day one begins with clarity
Digital diligence isn’t a parallel workstream; it’s underwriting against the operational risks your financial model can’t see.
Stage 02 – The First 100 Days: Building Operational Visibility
The first 100 days set the trajectory for the entire hold period. Boards expect early evidence of operational traction. GPs and LPs are watching for confirmation that the investment thesis is holding. The last thing you need is reporting that is 30 days delayed, manually reconciled, or inconsistent across the portco.
What Gets in the Way
Management is already stretched, and integrating new systems or reporting frameworks feels like an added burden.
KPIs agreed during diligence often don’t map cleanly to the portco’s actual data environment, creating immediate misalignment between the plan and what can be measured.
Fragmented legacy systems make it difficult to produce a single, consolidated view of performance that leadership and the board can rely on.
Stakeholder resistance and change fatigue can slow adoption before any value is captured, stalling the 100-day plan before it gains traction.
Board reporting cycles arrive before the infrastructure to support them does, forcing management to produce numbers manually under pressure.
What We Build in the First 90–120 Days
A phased implementation approach that minimizes disruption, so leadership can stay focused on operational execution.
Standardized KPIs reconciled against the portco’s real data environment and mapped directly to financial outcomes and not just operational activity.
Executive dashboards aligned to the value creation plan covering EBITDA tracking, working capital, and pricing, consolidated across the portco’s existing systems.
Managed analytics support that removes the operational burden from internal teams with no system overhaul required to start seeing results.
Early-win automation opportunities scoped and delivered within the first 90 days, so there is measurable ROI to present at the first quarterly board review.
Visibility isn’t a project to complete. It is the lever that makes every other priority on the 100-day plan executable.
Stage 03 – Ongoing Value Creation: From Reporting to Competitive Advantage
Once operational reporting is stabilized, the opportunity shifts. The question is no longer whether leadership can see what’s happening; it is whether the organization is using its data to make better decisions faster than its competitors. That distinction has a measurable impact on exit multiples.
Where Mid-Hold Performance Stalls
Existing dashboards are descriptive, and they report what happened, but don’t indicate what leadership should do about it or what is likely to happen next.
Data environments across portcos are fragmented and inconsistent, making cross-portfolio benchmarking and firm-level performance analysis effectively impossible.
AI maturity remains low across most portcos, limiting the ability to capture margin improvement through automation and data-driven operational decisions.
Talent gaps in data and analytics create single points of failure and make capability dependent on individuals rather than embedded institutional systems.
Without embedded analytics infrastructure, sophisticated buyers will apply a discount at exit to account for the integration effort they anticipate inheriting.
What Sustained Engagement Produces
Advanced analytics and AI capabilities embedded into day-to-day operations, shifting reporting from descriptive to predictive and ultimately prescriptive.
Cross-portfolio benchmarking and standardized reporting frameworks applied across the entire book, enabling firm-level performance analysis and peer comparison.
Predictive and prescriptive models deployed across pricing, cost structure, and operational planning are built on the data foundations established earlier in the hold period.
An institutional analytics capability maintained by a team that provides continuity through leadership changes and persists through to exit.
Clean, auditable data environments and governed reporting that reduce QoE friction, accelerate buyer diligence, and support a stronger negotiating position at exit.
Sophisticated buyers pay premiums for operational clarity. The time to build it is during the hold period and not 60 days before the mandate goes out.
Our Methodology
A methodology built around the deal, not around the technology. Every engagement follows the same four-phase sequence, regardless of the deal stage or portco maturity.
01 – ASSESS
Understand the data environment before making any commitments.
We begin with a rapid diagnostic by evaluating data maturity, reporting reliability, and AI readiness across the portco. The output is a clear, scored view of where the gaps are, what they are costing the business, and what it would take to close them. This phase is designed to run quickly and without creating additional demands on management bandwidth.
02 – ALIGN
Connect every initiative to a financial outcome before any work begins.
Assessment findings are translated into a structured roadmap where each initiative carries a defined financial KPI, a timeline, a named owner, and a measurement framework. Nothing makes the roadmap unless it connects directly to EBITDA, through SG&A reduction, pricing optimization, working capital improvement, or forecast accuracy. This phase ensures that the operating partner, portco leadership, and the board are aligned on priorities before resources are committed.
03 – BUILD
Implement in phases, within existing systems, without disrupting operations.
Implementation is sequenced to deliver early wins within the first 90 days while laying the foundations for more advanced capabilities over the hold period. We work within the portco’s existing technology environment wherever possible. No ground-up infrastructure replacement is required to start. Paragon Shift carries the build, so portco leadership carries the operations.
04 – SCALE & SUSTAIN
Embed institutional capability that holds through leadership changes and through exit.
As the hold period progresses, we expand from foundational reporting into advanced analytics, predictive modeling, and cross-portfolio benchmarking. By exit, the business carries a governed, auditable data environment that supports a cleaner diligence process and a stronger negotiating position.
How We Work With Private Equity Firms
Five capabilities, one integrated engagement model. Engagements are scoped to the deal stage and the portco’s current maturity. We enter where the need is greatest and scale as the hold period progresses.
Data Modernization
Most acquired companies carry fragmented, siloed data environments inherited from years of organic growth or prior ownership. We unify disparate sources into a governed, analytics-ready foundation without requiring a ground-up infrastructure replacement.
From deal-stage operational assessments to ongoing board reporting and executive dashboards, we build analytics environments that give operating partners and portco leadership a trusted, real-time view of the metrics that drive EBITDA.
Intelligent automation and AI-driven models reduce SG&A, improve forecast accuracy, and free management capacity for strategic work. Every AI initiative we scope is tied to a defined financial KPI; if it doesn’t connect to a measurable outcome, it doesn’t make the roadmap.
Institutional analytics capability shouldn’t depend on a single hire with a 6–9 month recruitment cycle. Our managed service model provides continuous reporting support, data governance, and analytics operations with team-based coverage that persists through leadership transitions and through exit.
Portcos operate across a wide range of ERP platforms, CRMs, and legacy systems. We build the connective tissue, integrating disparate tools and creating data flows that eliminate manual handoffs, reduce reconciliation overhead, and enable the reporting environment the business actually needs.
Our rapid diagnostic methodology is designed for compressed deal timelines. A full operational data assessment can be completed in 2–3 weeks, running concurrently with financial and commercial diligence without creating a dependency or adding to management’s workload.
02 – Every initiative is tied to a financial outcome
We don’t build dashboards for the sake of dashboards. Every engagement produces a roadmap in which each initiative includes a defined financial KPI, a timeline, a named owner, and a measurement framework. If we can’t quantify the impact, we don’t propose the initiative.
03 – Big Four experience. No Big Four overhead.
Our team brings direct experience from leading consulting firms applied across operational transformation, analytics, and AI implementation. We operate with the rigor of institutional consulting and the responsiveness of a specialized firm focused solely on data and AI outcomes.
04 – Continuity through the hold period and beyond.
Our managed services model means the analytics capability we build persists regardless of changes in portco leadership or internal team composition. We provide portfolio-wide consistency, institutional continuity, and the depth of a team.
Clarity before close. Leverage throughout the hold.
Whether you’re entering diligence on a new target, standing up a portco’s 100-day plan, or building toward exit, we’d welcome the opportunity to understand your current priorities.
