Management Challenge:
The Private Equity (PE) fund was looking to broaden their portfolio into the Life Sciences sector by the potential acquisition of a midsized specialist services organisation that provided a mixture of consulting and operational service. This was a new market for the PE fund hence they were looking to partner with an SME who had extensive knowledge of this sector.
Project Setup
- Sourced through a former colleague
- The client identified the need for a subject matter expert (SME) to educate on the market sector and also support in house due diligence team during the acquisition period
- Conducted face to face or virtually dependent on the location of the team members: UK and US.
Approach & Solution
- Voice of the customer research; twenty confidential interviews with clients (12) and new clients (8) of the potential acquisition organisation
- Research explored the following questions: How satisfied Life Sciences Organisations were with their provision of services provided by their partners? What drove the direction of travel and broadly how large was the potential markets for the provision of outsourcing services in Regulatory, Safety, Medical Writing, Medical Information? How well-positioned a “potential acquisition” was to continue to exploit the market opportunity? What might be the limiting factors preventing the target business growing in the future e.g. capabilities (talent and infrastructure), proposition, quality of deliverable, locations, current size and scalability, pricing model compared to key competitors.
Benefits & Outcome
- On the back of the initial voice of the customer project the PE decided to pursue the acquisition of the target organisation
- This project extended into a full due diligence exercise. SME worked as the expert with the in house team and a major consulting house for a 6 month period
- The PE acquired the target company.
