Cost Optimization for High-Tech & Software

The growth-over-profitability mindset is giving way to a focus on efficient, profitable growth. Do you know which levers to pull?

Slowing growth and compressed valuations are forcing high-tech & software companies to pivot toward the profitability side of the Rule of 40—balancing current costs and margins with growth and value creation. Optimizing an operating model for efficient growth requires fundamental changes beyond pausing hiring, reducing unnecessary spend, and halting new initiatives. That’s where we come in.

We understand the many levers for not only managing costs today but also making your organization leaner and more competitive for the future. We’ll make sure you’re pulling the right ones for your specific business model.

We can help thanks to the breadth of experience we bring to the table: Insight drawn from our work on more than 250 software transactions annually with hundreds of private equity-backed software companies, and a deep bench of expertise spanning all high-tech & software business functions—with practitioners ready to support you from due diligence through the hold period, and from strategy through successful execution.

Today’s market warrants timely, confident action, so we’ve built our cost optimization offering for both speed and precision. We’ll use data and benchmarking to develop hypotheses, study operations, and identify and quantify specific cost-optimization opportunities—all in a matter of weeks. Then, we’ll roll up our sleeves to help you see those opportunities through to meaningful bottom-line results.

Results You Can Expect

Reduce COGS by 5% to 15%
Lower R&D cost by 4% to 8%
Increase sales and marketing efficiency by 2% to 3%

What We Offer

Develop rapid hypotheses to sharpen your focus

Where should you begin? Our analysis is designed to establish practical, working hypotheses in as little as a week or two. We take an outside-in perspective of your organization or target, using proprietary and third-party data to identify and size cost opportunities across the P&L. We’ll look at areas such as:

Customer sentiment, product capabilities and differentiation, and offering/pricing materials
Digital value identification
Organizational design, structure, and cost profile compared to industry benchmarks and public competitors
Core technology and associated engineering skillsets

If you’re in the early stages of a transaction, our analysis can help refine investment thesis testing and identify the most critical areas for further diligence.

Identify your best cost-optimization and value opportunities

Where can you create the biggest impact? We’ll help you determine that—with an operational and technical review across the P&L—including COGS, research and development, sales and marketing, and general and administrative (G&A) functions. We work fast but dig deep—analyzing functions and benchmarking cost structures to understand how to most efficiently and effectively run the business.

From this, we can quantify cost-opportunities and the one-time spend needed to achieve them, and then create a forecasted P&L that reflects improvements. We also prioritize initiatives and work with your management team to plan the approach for capturing them—whether that is immediately post-close or later in a hold period.

Execute your plan and capture the value

Can you move with speed to improve margins and efficiency? After close and throughout the hold period, we’ll guide you through the initiatives necessary to deliver cost savings and become a leaner, faster, digital organization—with established offerings and implementation expertise designed just for that: