Creating relevant and high-quality management information is becoming increasingly difficult. At Bluefield, they believe that focus is the key to success. Full attention to your strategic goals, with no exceptions. Good management information is essential in achieving this. The rapid growth of funds in recent years has led to a corresponding increase in the number of portfolio companies and add-ons, pushing the limits of what Excel can handle.
The demand for management information is on the rise, and it’s not just because funds are growing.
According to Arnoud Rijpstra (40), one of the six directors at Bluefield, “the demands placed by portfolio companies and investors on each other are increasing. Portfolio companies are expected to provide a wealth of information, but the amount of information they receive in return is often limited.”
Bluefield also concludes that there is increasing attention for operational, commercial, and ESG indicators, which means that the complexity of reporting and consolidation is now greater than a few years ago.
“Benchmarking across portfolio companies provides insight to all parties and stimulates improvement of the results. Excellent information makes ambitious companies more effective, agile and therefore more successful.”
Portfolio dashboard for private equity
“Management information at the company level is often already a challenge, but proper registration of data, consolidation and reporting across multiple companies creates headaches for investors,” says Rijpstra. “Reporting still often takes place in Excel, also at private equity firms. That’s why we developed a fully scalable solution specifically for PE organisations over the past year. Portfolio dashboards that efficiently bring together all relevant information.”
Achieving excellent management information goes far beyond just creating a dashboard. “You can only achieve it with knowledge of the business goals, processes and finance. Good registration of data in optimised end-to-end processes is indispensable.”
ESG will be the challenge for 2023
“ESG is becoming increasingly important,” says the director of Bluefield. “There is increasing interest from consumers, investors, and supply chain partners, and new EU legislation will soon require companies to expand their disclosures.”
“The ESG information will be audited by the accountant and must therefore have the same quality as the financial information in the annual report, including an audit trail,” continues Arnoud Rijpstra. With new ESG services, Bluefield provides a solution for this challenge. “We ensure the correct registration of ESG data and create dashboards that provide insight into the sustainability performance of the entire investment portfolio. You will be able to easily share these insights with all your stakeholders.”
Read the full interview with Arnoud Rijpstra at mena.nl (Dutch)