Five articles on winning PE and portco work as an IT services firm. The first names the problem. The second and third lay out the destination and where to start. The fourth flips to the buyer's lens. The fifth follows the money.
Five commercial failure modes that show up across mid-market IT services firms trying to break into private equity. If you've been losing deals you should have won, this is where to look first.
Five maturity markers across a three-year arc. What firms get right in year one, what compounds in year two, and what separates a firm winning PE-portco work consistently in year three.
Five concrete Year-1 moves in execution order: offer, ICP, proof points, narrative, handoff. The article most worth reading if you're deciding whether to start this work in the next quarter.
The five dimensions sponsors score below every capability claim — exit narrative fit, time-to-value, operational lift, execution risk, key-person risk — and the move that shifts each one in the room.
Why most IT services firms trade at 5x EBITDA when the top quartile trades at 15x — the four structural markers sponsors pay for, the four reasons T&M gets discounted, and the 90-day repositioning move.