Preparing for an IPO or an exit in 2025 or 2026? Automation empowers companies to achieve critical exit-readiness milestones while improving valuation and ensuring a smooth transition to a target operating state. When the right moment arrives, your company will be ahead of the curve thanks to the automated processes you implement today.
To rationalize cost structures, increase efficiency, enable scale, and leverage a stronger competitive position during the lead-up to an exit, explore automation use cases below:
Regulatory Compliance and Audit-Ready Reporting
Regulatory complexity and penalties for non-compliance make strategic IPO readiness a financial and legal imperative. Private companies must enhance compliance and reporting processes to meet more stringent public-company regulatory requirements. Companies that remain private after a transaction can still benefit from enhanced reporting capabilities. Automated control mechanisms can help address this by:
- Improving external audit efficiency and collaboration with audit advisory partners.
- Decreasing compliance costs associated with traditional, more manual methods.
- Reducing risk of control failure as operations expand.
- Increasing transparency in controls and reporting with continuous monitoring of data and dashboarding. Tools like FloQast specialize in this capability.
Positioning for M&A
Integrating automation in operational and financial activities can help when buying or selling a business by:
- Developing a productive, rationalized employee base and higher employee satisfaction, as individuals are upskilled with diverse and flexible automation skills in low-code/no-code tools.
- Minimizing time spent attempting to integrate legacy systems. The infrastructure built with automation can be used to extract, transform, and load legacy data into unified reporting.
- Leveraging existing automation as a buying/selling point for why the transaction would be beneficial.
- Remaining nimble to market and technology changes can influence which types of companies are engaged for sell-side and buy-side transaction discussions.
Featured Insight
Operational Excellence and Decision-Ready Analytics
Automation gives executives the data they need to confidently navigate the complexities of a transaction event by:
- Establishing consistent financial and operational dashboarding, reporting, analytics, and forecasting to allow executive management to make real-time business decisions. CrossCountry Consulting’s proprietary reporting and analytics framework helps integrate cross-functional data and surface strategic insights, enabling leaders to quickly capitalize on value-creation initiatives and competitive advantages.
- Minimizing points for human error in repeatable operational activities to make KPIs more reliable.
- Significantly reducing financial close and Record-to-Report (R2R) cycle times with AI/ML-enabled workflows.
- Maintaining a strong workforce capable of engineering new ways to maintain, analyze, and improve the business rather than “going through the motions.”
- Maintaining strong and consistent data to use for decision-making and stakeholder transparency.
Interested in learning more? See how automation helped save more than 1,535 hours monthly and generate $4.7 million in bottom-line savings opportunities for a growing real estate firm.
Financial Success and Client Satisfaction
Automation can optimize financial management and financial health while also creating better customer experiences, resulting in a profitable roadmap for recouping initial investments. Maximize the pre-exit period by:
- Reducing operational expenses and overhead through automation-led cost transformation programs.
- Improving working capital management as processes are automated, replacing manual efforts.
- Improving products or services offered so that sales price or volume can increase.
- Earning or saving with more accurate forecasting based on consistent data sources and enterprise performance management (EPM) systems.
- Enhancing end-user experience for products and clients, rather than trying to maintain essential business operations.
- Freeing up strategic resources to innovate, expand client relationships, and better serve the market instead of continuing to complete manual, transactional tasks.
Real-world example: See how CrossCountry leveraged automation tools and other digital technologies like Alteryx, Tableau, Power Query, and Shared Directories to save 900 hours monthly for a multinational investment bank.
Enabling rapid ROI through automation starts with a strong data foundation and technology architecture. Automation platforms can be quickly and affordably implemented on top of, independently from, or alongside existing traditional systems like ERP or accounting tools. When evaluating what kinds of automation programs can be deployed most effectively, in which departments, and at what time on the exit roadmap, it’s best to bring in external resources for a holistic assessment and plan of action.
For expert automation and exit-readiness support, contact CrossCountry Consulting.