Product engineering:
Value creation in private equity
Five opportunity areas to grow revenue and reduce costs
Unlock value with product engineering
For private equity firms looking for a novel way to create value from their software and technology company investments, product engineering can provide opportunity areas to grow revenue and reduce costs. We have identified the following levers for due diligence and post-close activities within the five areas that comprise product engineering.
Revenue growth levers:
New product opportunity identification, existing product enhancements, pricing and packaging optimization, strategic product road map development.
Cost reduction levers:
Investment planning and prioritization.
Due diligence value creation activities:
Conduct outside-in research to understand customer needs and competitor positioning and identify “white space” opportunities; define differentiated use cases and verticals to target to address white space opportunities; frame conceptual opportunity, including value proposition, key components, and desired customer outcomes.
Post-close value creation activities:
Position strategic case for investment, including rationale, risks of inaction, and go-forward plan; align on build/buy/partner decisions and estimate level of effort for new offering components; define strategic road map, including high-level milestones and dependencies.
Revenue growth levers:
Product modernization (e.g., cloud native, microservices), product to flexible consumption/everything as a service (XaaS), data monetization.
Cost reduction levers:
SKU rationalization, road map and pipeline alignment.
Due diligence value creation activities:
Access product portfolio and pipeline health; conduct product due diligence (e.g., scalability, maintainability, security, and data); analyze process for prioritizing R&D investments.
Post-close value creation activities:
Rationalize portfolio and SKUs; implement product modernization (e.g., move to Cloud, XaaS, data monetization); reposition R&D investment to align with the growth plan.
Revenue growth levers:
Effective product development process, agile software development, DevOps/continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) for rapid release.
Cost reduction levers:
SKU rationalization, road map, and pipeline alignment.
Due diligence value creation activities:
Evaluate product development process maturity (e.g., agile, product development team roles); access current development automation activities and assets.
Post-close value creation activities:
Establish formal/modern product development process; implement DevOps/CI/CD; automate product testing.
Revenue growth levers:
Engineering tool modernization (e.g., higher scalability).
Cost reduction levers:
Engineering tool modernization (e.g., lower maintenance cost), tool consolidation.
Due diligence value creation activities:
Conduct technology due diligence to identify technical debt; map engineering tool functionality and usage.
Post-close value creation activities:
Consolidate engineering tools by removing redundancy and low- to no-usage tools; modernize engineering tools (e.g., cloud, low-code/no-code).
Revenue growth levers:
Engineering outsourcing—access to skilled workforce globally and at faster scale.
Cost reduction levers:
Engineering outsourcing – offshoring/nearshoring, product org optimization.
Due diligence value creation activities:
Evaluate talent needs and skills gaps across locations; assess engineering resource allocation (e.g., new vs. maintenance products, design vs. testing); assess organizational structure.
Post-close value creation activities:
Offshore/nearshore in-house engineering talent; engage outsourced engineering firms to fill skill gaps and offload noncore activities; optimize organization structure to enable sharing and lower overhead.
Private equity value creation:
Questions and answers
Value creation levers
Q: What can private equity companies do for value creation in their portfolio companies?
Value creation levers
A: In addition to traditional levers of cost cutting and multiple expansions, private equity companies can use product engineering to drive value creation in their portfolio companies.
Value creation framework
Q: How can private equity companies use product engineering for value creation in their portfolio companies?
Value creation framework
A: Private equity companies can use a framework composed of product strategy, portfolio management, product development, engineering tools, and engineering talent to drive value.
Value creation playbook
Q: Is there a playbook that private equity companies can use to drive value creation?
Value creation playbook
A: Deloitte’s Software Engineering practice has created a playbook, focused on product engineering, that private equity companies can use to grow revenue and reduce costs within their portfolio companies.
Contact us to learn more
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Principal
Software Engineering
Deloitte Consulting LLP
+1 415 783 2094
Managing Director
M&A and Restructuring
Deloitte Consulting LLP
+1 213 553 1043
Senior Manager
Product Engineering
Deloitte Consulting LLP
+1 929 237 9561
Senior Manager
Go-To-Market Strategy
Deloitte Consulting LLP
+1 646 455 9632