Optimizing iLevel for Smarter Private Equity Monitoring

Time Consuming Portfolio Monitoring

While iLEVEL effectively collected data from portfolio companies each month, Pinnacle Capital relied on manual processes to distribute useful insights from the data. These processes resulted in:

Limited Visibility: The Firm struggled to gain a unified view of performance metrics across all portfolio companies.

Time-Consuming Analysis: Analysts spent significant time reconfiguring data for comparisons, leading to inefficiencies.

Underutilized Technology: Existing tools, like iLevel, were underperforming due to limited native reporting capabilities.

A Tailored Power BI Reporting Framework

The firm partnered with Blue Margin to connect to the iLEVEL API, streamline the flow of data into a data lake, and develop a full reporting suite in Power BI, giving the CFO the timely visibility he needed to coordinate with investment teams, operating partners, and management teams.

The Power BI reporting suite provided Pinnacle’s CFO with detailed financial reporting, including:

• Consolidated income statements, balance sheets, cash flow statements, net debt, and revenue / EBITDA analysis.
• Variance comparisons against budgets and prior periods.
• Highlighted, consistent metrics across all companies, allowing leaders to quickly identify outliers and underperformers.
• The ability to toggle between different timeframes, portfolio companies, and key performance indicators (KPIs).
• The ability to quickly identify companies that were underperforming, to prioritize the firm’s efforts and action plans to improve performance.

Additionally, Blue Margin was able to ingest other data sources (internal time-tracking system and external market data) to complement iLEVEL’s metrics data. These additional data sources helped to contextualize the time analysts spent working on each company, and the broader economic drivers affecting portfolio company performance.

Improved Productivity

The implementation of Blue Margin’s Power BI dashboard solution yielded impressive and almost immediate impacts:

Time Savings Analysts reduced manual work by reallocating their efforts toward high-value tasks.

Improved Decision Making The firm gained a holistic view of portfolio performance, enabling faster and more informed decisions.

Enhanced LP Confidence Transparent reporting bolstered trust with limited partners.

Scalability Blue Margin’s design allowed for seamless addition of new portfolio companies, metrics, and even new sources of data.

Key Takeaways

• Maximizing Technology Investments: While iLevel provided a robust data collection framework, its limitations in reporting highlighted the importance of pairing it with advanced BI tools to maximize the return on the initial investment in the platform.
• Collaboration: A dedicated liaison within Pinnacle Capital’s team ensured smooth communication and efficient implementation while Power BI reporting was being developed.
• Custom Solutions Drive Value: Tailored dashboards, designed to fit the exact needs and metric definitions for Pinnacle, ensured strong adoption and positioned associates at the firm to build a more data-driven approach to their work with portfolio companies.