Private equity firms use health checks twice: on their own deal and investor org, and on portfolio companies whose Salesforce setups affect value creation plans.
We run this review for sponsors in two different situations. For the firm itself, we review deal pipeline, intermediary and investor relations data, focusing on confidentiality between funds and deal teams, relationship capture and reporting to partners. For portfolio companies, we assess the target or newly acquired company's Salesforce org as part of diligence or an early value creation plan, covering security, data quality, technical debt and how reliably it reports pipeline and customers. In both cases, the output is a ranked risk list sized to the decision at hand, not a generic audit.
A firm's own CRM holds information that is sensitive in unusual ways. Deal names, bid levels and management meetings are confidential, and information barriers may be required between funds, strategies or credit and equity teams. Investor records include commitments and contact details that fall under securities and privacy rules. Relationship data matters because sourcing depends on who knows whom, yet partners rarely log activity. For portfolio companies, the question changes: whether the commercial data a buyer relies on is trustworthy and how much work the org needs after close. Few other industries ask a health check to support an investment decision directly.
We test whether users on one fund, strategy or deal team can see another team's pipeline, notes and files, and whether restricted deals are hidden from people outside the working group. Global search and list views get tested alongside folder permissions. Where walls depend on manual steps, we document how long a newly restricted deal stays visible and to whom.
Limited partner records often contain commitments, contacts, side letter terms and communication history. We review who can access them, whether investor portals expose one investor's information to another and how fundraising data connects to fund administration records. We also check that distribution lists for investor communications are drawn from current, approved contact data rather than old spreadsheets imported once. Stale investor contacts are counted.
Sourcing depends on knowing which bankers, advisors and executives your team has met and how recently. We measure how complete intermediary and contact records are, how email and calendar capture is configured and whether duplicate firms or bankers split relationship history. The findings show whether coverage reports reflect the team's real network or only the fraction that someone remembered to log.
When a target or new portfolio company runs Salesforce, we assess whether its pipeline, bookings and customer data can support the investment thesis. We review data quality, stage definitions, integrations with billing, security settings and technical debt, then estimate the relative effort needed to stabilize or standardize the org. The findings feed diligence memos and early value creation planning. Key-person risk around a lone admin is noted.
For the firm's own org, we start with the chief operating officer or head of business development and the compliance officer, then interview a few deal professionals and investor relations staff. For portfolio companies, we coordinate through the operating partner and the company's revenue or IT leader, respecting deal confidentiality and any clean team arrangements. All work is read-only. Findings are delivered in the form the decision needs: a concise risk summary for investment committee or a prioritized workplan for the portfolio company.
We confirm how commitments, capital activity and investor documents link to Salesforce contacts, and whether access boundaries on each side match.
We review which mailboxes are captured, how deal-sensitive messages are filtered and who can read logged activity across fund and deal teams.
We check how company and contact data from external sources is matched to existing records, and whether imports create duplicates or overwrite curated information.
Registered advisers generally need policies to prevent misuse of material nonpublic information, and SEC examiners may ask how systems enforce them. The review documents how Salesforce restricts deal and investor data, giving compliance evidence to evaluate. Interpreting regulatory requirements remains with counsel and compliance, not the review.
A common CRM playbook across portfolio companies can speed reporting, but each business sells differently. Use health checks to decide which companies share enough to adopt a standard model, and which would lose value if forced into a template built for another business.
AI tools that suggest introductions or summarize relationship history depend on complete, deduplicated contact and activity data. If partners rarely log meetings, recommendations will favor whoever logs the most. Improve capture and matching first, and confirm restricted deals are excluded from any AI output.
Client names are anonymized.
Scope drives timing more than anything. A focused diligence review concentrates on pipeline and bookings reliability, integrations with billing and obvious security gaps, and can fit within most diligence windows. A full review covering adoption, technical debt and roadmap usually follows after close. We agree the scope with the deal team up front so the findings arrive before they are needed.
Only what the target agrees to provide under the deal's confidentiality terms. Often that means screen-shared walkthroughs, exported metadata or report extracts rather than direct login. We design the review around those limits and are clear about what could not be verified, so the investment team understands the confidence behind each finding rather than assuming the org was fully examined.
The review explains why and what would help, which is the start of fixing it. Common causes include slow data entry, capture tools that were never configured for the whole team and reports partners do not find useful. We measure current capture and recommend a small set of changes that make logging nearly automatic without exposing sensitive deal correspondence.
Yes. Operating teams often want a consistent view across companies to prioritize investment. We apply the same review structure to each org so results are comparable, then summarize common risks and opportunities across the portfolio. Each company still receives its own detailed findings, since fixes need to reflect how that business actually sells and serves customers.
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