The first 120 days: a value creation plan for PE-backed technology companies
When a private equity fund finalizes the acquisition of a technology company, the celebration doesn’t last long. For the deal team, the ink on the agreement is barely dry, and the real work is already beginning. For the CEO and their management team, the clock starts ticking immediately. In the world of private equity, the first 120 days post-acquisition are not just important—they are decisive. They set the tone for the rest of the investment period and often determine whether the investment will realize its thesis or quietly slide into mediocrity.
Market experience from the enterprise software, loyalty and marketing technology, and financial services IT sectors—in both founder-led and PE-backed companies—shows that this post-closing period is a unique blend of time pressure and opportunity. The new owners are eagerly awaiting proof of the investment’s validity; the management team is grappling with change, often under pressure; and the market, in most cases, senses that something is changing. The art and the challenge lie in transforming this initial energy into a disciplined plan that starts delivering value right away while laying the groundwork for sustainable growth.
At 3 Hazel Tree Partners, we operate precisely in this space. We are not theorists; we are practitioners who have managed companies, scaled products across continents, wrestled with delivery bottlenecks, and sat on supervisory boards, explaining progress to investors. Based on these experiences, we can present a practical, six-step plan for the first 120 days—a plan that combines commercial acceleration, product and engineering alignment, delivery optimization, smarter use of data, seamless carve-out and M&A integration, and the establishment of a disciplined operational rhythm.
Commercial acceleration: securing early wins
The first imperative is always revenue. A private equity fund’s investment thesis almost always assumes some form of growth—new markets, a larger share of the customer’s wallet, or faster deal closures. The challenge is that in many post-acquisition situations, the inherited sales engine is not fully tuned for the road ahead. It is common to find situations where the go-to-market strategy looks good on paper, but a deeper analysis reveals fragmented market coverage, inconsistent messaging, and incentive systems that reward activity rather than results.
In these first few months, the goal is not to rewrite the entire commercial strategy. It’s about understanding where the real opportunities lie and mobilizing the organization to seize them. This starts with an uncompromising diagnosis: where are revenues actually coming from, which customer segments are underpenetrated, and what patterns can be seen in win rates and sales cycle times? The answers are rarely comfortable, but they form the basis for targeted actions.
Once the picture becomes clear, the focus shifts to refining the go-to-market strategy. In the market, it is observed that software companies from Central and Eastern Europe achieve success by abandoning a broad, regional sales offensive in favor of concentrating on a few key industries. Focusing on sectors where the product is the best fit and strong references exist often results in a shorter sales cycle, higher conversion rates, and quick wins that build the confidence of the board and investors.
These early wins mean more than most leaders realize. They create internal momentum, show the investor that the strategy is working, and give the sales team the confidence to keep pushing. In the context of PE, credibility is built deal by deal, and the first 120 days are the best chance to start building it.
Product and engineering alignment: closing the gap
While the commercial department is the face of the company and generates demand, the product and engineering teams are its technological heart, enabling the fulfillment of promises. However, in many acquisitions, these functions are not sufficiently aligned with growth priorities. It is common to find product roadmaps that are technically ambitious but commercially irrelevant, and engineering teams that are spread too thin across too many initiatives. The result is wasted resources and missed opportunities.
In the early post-closing period, the goal is to close this gap. This starts with a critical, commercial-lens look at the product portfolio: which development activities will directly support revenue growth or the defense of key clients, and which can be paused or stopped altogether? Making these decisions early on frees up engineering resources to focus on what matters most.
Alignment is not just about priorities; it’s also about feedback loops. In high-performing organizations, customer insights flow freely from sales, through product, to engineering, and back again. In the first 120 days, it is crucial to create structured mechanisms—customer advisory boards, embedded analytics, dedicated account managers—to make this loop a permanent part of the operating model. When product decisions are based on real customer data and validated by the market, the company’s growth story becomes much more compelling.
Delivery optimization: building the margin engine
If sales growth drives the topline, then delivery excellence protects costs and improves the bottom line. However, delivery is often the least glamorous and most overlooked lever in the first months of a PE-backed transformation. It happens that profitable deals turn into a margin nightmare because projects go over budget, deadlines are missed, and quality issues undermine customer trust.
The first step is to establish a baseline. You can’t improve what you can’t measure, so it starts with mapping project performance—margins, cycle times, defect rates—and identifying patterns. Are budget overruns concentrated in specific geographic regions? Do they occur more frequently with certain types of clients or technologies?
Delivery optimization is also about people. In many technology companies, the delivery organization relies too heavily on a few key individuals. The first 120 days are the time to identify these dependencies and start building redundancy through cross-training, clearer documentation, and more structured resource planning. The benefits are both immediate and long-term: improved resilience, higher margins, and greater scalability.
Data and business analytics: seeing the full picture
One of the fastest ways to accelerate decision-making—and one of the biggest frustrations in many post-closing situations—is getting the data in order. It is striking how many companies operate on fragmented, inconsistent information. Sales data doesn’t reconcile between regions, project margins are calculated differently in various business units, and key performance indicators (KPIs) are either missing or historical.
The goal in the first 120 days is not to build the perfect, enterprise-wide BI system—that will take time. It’s about creating a single version of the truth for the metrics that matter most to the investment thesis. This means identifying key systems and data sources, standardizing definitions, and creating dashboards that decision-makers can actually use.
Market practice shows that a well-designed management dashboard, delivered within the first two months, can change the way a leadership team operates. Suddenly, conversations shift from arguing about the numbers to debating what to do with them.
Good data is also a tool for building trust. PE sponsors value transparency, and nothing builds trust faster than being able to answer a board member’s question with a clear, up-to-date number. In this sense, data and BI are not just operational tools—they are strategic assets.
Carve-out and M&A integration: avoiding the value destruction trap
Some PE-backed companies are acquired as carve-outs from larger corporations; others quickly become platforms for further acquisitions. In both cases, integration is a high-stakes game. Done well, it accelerates the realization of the investment thesis. Done poorly, it can destroy value faster than any other factor.
The most important thing in a carve-out or integration process is Day One readiness. This means having key systems, HR processes, and customer communications in place to ensure smooth operations. The first few days are also the moment to set the cultural tone. People will be looking for signals about the new leadership’s priorities and style, and these impressions will last.
Integrations fail when management underestimates the complexity, ignores cultural differences, or allows synergy goals to become diluted. The first 120 days are the time to establish the right habits, set clear accountability, and make integration discipline part of the company’s DNA.
Operational rhythm: ingraining the habits
The final piece of the puzzle is rhythm. Even the best strategy will fail if the organization doesn’t have a consistent way to track progress, make decisions, and hold itself accountable. In the chaos of the first 120 days, it’s easy for management meetings to become reactive, investor updates to be sporadic, and employees to feel lost in the noise of change.
Establishing an operational rhythm is about creating a predictable structure. Market experience shows that this means weekly management meetings with a tight agenda focused on KPIs and blockers, monthly deep dives into operational issues, and quarterly board packs that tell a coherent, data-driven story. It also means cascading clear communications throughout the organization so that every team understands how its work fits into the bigger picture.
Turning the plan into action
The six-step plan is not a theoretical framework; it’s a practical sequence of actions that can be started on Day One and will deliver results by Day 120. It’s about balancing speed with focus, and about using the initial post-closing energy to build the habits and systems that will sustain value creation for years to come.
