Improve deal, activity, and relationship management—without a substantial investment or lead time

Many of a private equity firm’s key functions rely on up-to-date information about contacts, activities, and relationships. To operate profitably and competitively, firms must be able to:

• Track and mange deal and fundraising activities from open to close.
• Leverage institutional knowledge and develop a complete view of firm contacts (potential investors, limited partners, intermediaries, and service providers), relationships, deals, and referrals.
• Streamline investor relations by enabling current and comprehensive access to investor information, including contact information, assets, known investments, preferences, investment plans and news bytes.
• Respond quickly to client requests for information and track and manage all correspondence, including capital call distributions, quarterly reporting, and newsletters.
• Enable quick access to information about their investment portfolios.
• Track or collate limited partner commitments, percentages drawn, and current cost/value.

Yet, private equity firms often use multiple systems or methods for tracking this information, leading to inefficiency, lost productivity, or worse—an incomplete view of the business when making critical decisions.

A proven solution, now tailored to the unique needs of private equity firms.

Salesforce.com—a hosted customer relationship management (CRM) solution—has changed the way that many private equity firms approach CRM.

A proven solution that has enabled many organizations to enhance productivity and relationships, Salesforce.com now offers a version built especially for the unique needs of private equity firms, with:

• Pre-configured objects (deals, funds, investments, etc.) and industry-specific terminology.
• Out-of-the-box Capital IQ integration that offers integrated access to company background, financials, and current news.

By integrating data from back-end systems, Salesforce.com can help firms operate more efficiently and minimize the pain of fumbling through multiple clicks and systems when on the phone with a current or potential investor.

Salesforce.com provides a flexible and powerful platform:

• Because it is a subscription-based, hosted solution, these capabilities are available without significant up-front CRM software and hardware investments, a lengthy implementation process, or expensive ongoing maintenance.
• Its pay-as-you-go model allows firms to scale services up or down, as needed, to meet business demands.
• Its familiar user interface and ability to work seamlessly with Microsoft Outlook, PDAs, and other tools helps speed user adoption—a common issue with some other CRM solutions.
• And, its secure, reliable infrastructure alleviates the need for dealing with hardware, connectivity, or security issues.

How can a Salesforce.com solution help you?

A fully integrated Salesforce.com solution tailored to private equity operations can help:

• Streamline deal management processes.
• Schedule and ensure completion of follow-up activities effectively, allowing deal professionals to focus their time on high value-tasks.
• Reduce the risk of losing valuable information by utilizing one central, secured database.
• Improve productivity by providing a single point for accessing all key information—and enable professionals to access investment information in real time, while on the road.
• Improve visibility of deal flow, deal pipelines, and portfolios through real-time reports and dashboards.
• Facilitate the fund-raising process through dynamic, powerful dashboards that break down commitments by source, type, etc., and quickly show how close a firm is to reaching its goals.
• Improve profitability by delivering data that enables firms to prioritize activities and focus efforts on those that are most valuable.
• Manage all types of investor correspondence and gain insight into current and potential investors: What is their investment appetite, what are their preferences, and are they in the news?

With proper planning and a little customization to suit your specific operations, your firm can begin reaping the benefits right away.