Challenge 2025 for PE – The Rapid Growth Roadmap

Clifford Hall, Managing Director | Andrew Harris, Managing Director | Prasad Aduri, Senior Director

“If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business” – B.C. Forbes

This article is Part 2 in a series on creating value in portfolio companies. Read Part 1 here.

How many of your portfolio companies are hanging on by life support as you patiently wait for market conditions to improve? Unfortunately, many of the present-day economic conditions — high interest rates, labor costs and supply chain destabilization — will largely continue while your profitability languishes or wastes away.

Reviving profitability by acting now requires a much more aggressive remediation of underperforming companies and a pivot back to value creation.

In this commercial-focused deep dive into Private Equity (PE) value creation, we present the Rapid Growth Roadmap: five questions investors, CEOs or Boards should ask to effectively identify and realize near-term growth opportunities.

A&M’s Rapid Growth Roadmap: 5 Questions That Drive Action

Each of the Rapid Growth Roadmap questions provides PE funds and their portfolio companies with new perspectives on and clarity into their customers, strategies and market position. This enables PE firms to quickly execute in-market strategies to drive the growth needed to enable struggling portfolio companies to change their trajectory, positioning them for success.

Do you know which customer segments are most attractive and how effectively your commercial organization is positioned to win within these segments?
To what extent does your portfolio strategy help drive decisions on how you sell or serve tail offerings?
Do you know which customers are most susceptible to attrition and why, so that you can intervene before it is too late?
Do you know how to maximize share of wallet from existing customers through cross-sell and up-sell across your offer portfolio?
Is your approach to pricing strategy, execution and governance maximizing prices or leaving money on the table?

Why It Matters Now

By addressing these five areas, PE firms can drive rapid commercial improvements that often lead to 500–800 basis points in margin uplift, funding future growth and repositioning companies for long-term success.

The only path forward is immediate, aggressive and data-driven action. Anything less is not an option.

Read the full article

https://www.alvarezandmarsal.com/thought-leadership/challenge-2025-for-pe-the-rapid-growth-roadmap

Authors

Clifford Hall

Managing Director

Clifford Hall is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal Private Equity Performance Improvement Group in New York. With more than 25 years of experience in management, board advisory, operational, and functional roles in the Americas, Europe and Asia, he leads the U.S. Commercial Excellence service line.

Andrew Harris

Managing Director

Kyle Lemmon is a Managing Director with Alvarez & Marsal Private Equity Performance Improvement in Los Angeles. He brings over 15 years of experience serving private equity funds across transformation-related topics, including growth strategy, M&A strategy, operational performance improvement, organizational design, and cost optimization for diversified industries, with a focus on consumer and industrial products and services.

Prasad Aduri

Senior Director

Prasad Aduri is a Senior Director with Alvarez & Marsal Private Equity Performance Improvement in Chicago. He specializes in leading commercial excellence, business and technology transformation programs for private equity and corporate clients. Mr. Aduri has worked with clients across a range of industries, including industrial, technology, business services, healthcare, energy and financial services.