Knowledgenow Apax Partners Portfolio Support Group Conference 2012 New York, September 2012 Apax Partners Knowledgenow Conference Report 2012 01
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KnowledgeNow Apax Partners Portfolio Support Group Conference 2012 New York, September 2012 Apax Partners KnowledgeNow Conference report 2012 01 The Apax Partners KnowledgeNow New York, Conference took place at The Sentry Centres in New York, on 5th and 6th September 2012 September 2012. Supporting our portfolio Apax Partners (‘Apax’) is one of the world’s leading private equity firms. Our funds invest across five sectors: Financial & Business Services, Healthcare, Media, Retail & Consumer and Tech & Telecom. We use our deep sector expertise to help release the potential of the companies in which our funds invest. Vital to our success in this is our Portfolio Support Group (‘PSG’), which advises on key strategic and operational initiatives within portfolio companies to help drive value. The PSG complements our deal teams with different skills and expertise. It is a group of operating specialists with functional expertise in areas such as IT, recruitment, procurement and financing. The KnowledgeNow conference is a forum for sharing experiences and discussing the common challenges and opportunities our portfolio businesses face. Watch our Portfolio Support Group film at What’s inside this report? In attendance... www.apax.com/news/video-library Why KnowledgeNow? Building alignment Big Data Executives and partners 02 Maximising expertise across Apax’s 06 Tools to embrace rapid change, and 10 Driving results with innovation, portfolio. An overview from Seth create organisational focus. An open competition and productivity. 96 Brody, Partner, PSG, Apax Partners. discussion between global CEOs and Global CEOs, consultants and technology specialists. operational experts explore Portfolio companies many aspects of changes in data management and analytics. 19 Boxing clever on procurement Mobile internet Talent show 16 Increasing value through our 22 How change presents 26 Recruiting the best people. Global Representing... portfolio’s collective buying power. many challenges, but many more perspectives from two of the world’s Explaining ‘cost optimisation’ and opportunities. A view from our premier recruitment firms. Enterprise ‘digital analytics’ to drive greater value portfolio, where mobile consumer value invested in purchasing. behaviour is driving growth. $29bn+ Attendees About PSG About Apax Partners Employees 30 Delegates included leaders from 32 How the Portfolio Support Group 36 How we generate returns for our Apax’s portfolio companies, global adds value through scale. investors across five specialist sectors. 115,000+ experts in operations, and key partners who are driving efficiencies Meet the Apax Partners Portfolio across our portfolio. 34 Support Group team. 02 Apax Partners KnowledgeNow Conference report 2012 03 Introduction Why do we need KnowledgeNow? Seth Brody Partner, PSG, Apax Partners Maximising expertise across Apax’s portfolio companies. Apax Partner Seth Brody introduces the conference and outlines the benefits of sharing knowledge and experience across our portfolio. In the ten months since our last gathering... +181% $220m+ $2.1bn+ 3 Avg growth in mobile Value of procurement Equity invested by Apax New Portfolio traffic at top 10 portfolio contracts optimised Partners’ funds Support Group hires company websites As the owner of approximately 40 large companies based around the world, Apax Partners is well positioned to help you face these challenges by sharing knowledge gleaned at one company with others facing similar issues. Seth Brody Partner, PSG, Apax Partners 04 Apax Partners KnowledgeNow Conference report 2012 05 KnowledgeNow? continued The portfolio support team works with sector experts in our deal teams and our extensive network Recruitment of preferred suppliers to help drive lasting value. The Apax recruitment centre Seth Brody Partner, PSG, Apax Partners provides the PSG team with Online & access to international e-commerce leadership talent and Driving growth via website specialists which they can optimisation, traffic acquisition then recommend to portfolio and mobile applications. company management. Purchasing Read about advancing Read about talent on p26 Business intelligence The team is on hand to advise technologies on p22 The PSG supports Releasing the potential of There is also great strength in numbers, and on negotiations with suppliers Specialist expertise in mining data within the company to the Apax portfolio the Apax network is a powerful resource. Apax Partners’ proven and recommend the best investment strategy create actionable analytics The 19 portfolio companies that attended firms to work with. Business is changing with a daunting and key performance metrics. had a combined enterprise value of more Read about purchasing velocity, and those that fail to adapt will be Read about big data on p10 than $29bn, annual sales in excess of $26bn power on p16 left behind. Identify and over 115,000 employees. That Globalisation, the Internet, digitalisation, represents a lot of purchasing power. Apax has a well-established the explosion of data; these mega-trends investment selection process Knowledge Now are impacting businesses big and small and based on identifying companies in the €1–5bn size range with the pace is accelerating. Companies that The aim of our second Portfolio Support the potential for significant spent a decade getting online are going Group conference, on which this brochure future growth. mobile in a couple of years. In our own is based, was to bring together this vast portfolio, we have witnessed a 363% pool of operational expertise from across growth in mobile traffic in the last year. the portfolio to share best-practice and The reliable touch-points that used to network with professionals facing similar Support define your interaction with customers challenges. As the name suggests, The large sector teams work have now changed into a huge amorphous KnowledgeNow is about sharing embedded Read more about how closely with management Portfolio the PSG supports our soup of petabytes of data. How do you knowledge and generating practical ideas throughout the period of the store it? Mine it? Use it? Is it of any use? that can be implemented quickly. Support strategy in our latest investment to transform the Group What do our customers want? company. This is supplemented Annual Report. More than 100 senior level operators joined by the specific functional As the owner of approximately 40 large the Apax Portfolio Support Group and a expertise of the in-house companies based around the world, Apax select group of ‘preferred suppliers’ to Portfolio Support Group. Partners is well positioned to help you face brainstorm the major challenges and these challenges by sharing knowledge opportunities in global business. It was gleaned at one company with others facing our clear intention that this should not be a similar issues. talking shop; we wanted to demystify the minefield of hype and jargon to deliver Realise Supporting our portfolio practical insights that help drive growth Once the growth objectives It has built a team dedicated to helping or cut costs. have been achieved, we begin portfolio companies release their true discussions about the most As well as a chance to swap stories, war appropriate next owner of the potential by assisting them on specific wounds and best practice, it also gave our business. The average length areas. Be it devising a new mobile strategy, team an opportunity to showcase many of of an investment is around Information 100 day planning testing the sales effectiveness of a new five years. the projects that have already borne fruit technology The team assist the deal website or cutting procurement costs, teams with analysing the across the portfolio. Enables managers to unlock Apax has world class talent on offer so potential from their investments prospects for a new business that management is not left facing these Apax portfolio companies have a huge in IT infrastructure and and potential areas for improvement. challenges alone. resource at their disposal. The portfolio organisation. Operational finance Capital markets Provide expertise in budgeting, The team are able to support team works with sector experts This area of expertise will be This area of expertise will be The Portfolio Support Group (‘PSG’) is on cash management, and capital provide management and the in our deal teams and our extensive explored at future events explored at future events hand to help management drive value on spending optimisation. deal teams with access to network of preferred suppliers to help specialist knowledge on debt specific projects and, importantly, it does This area of expertise will be drive lasting value. structures and financing. so under their guidance. It is a team of explored at future events operational experts not a bunch of retired This brochure provides a snapshot of This area of expertise will be CEOs. It works with management not the topics and conversations that were explored at future events against it. discussed but it can only ever be a snapshot. We would love the opportunity to share the full picture with you and help your business release its true potential. 06 Apax Partners KnowledgeNow Conference report 2012 07 John King Chair of Trader Canada, Former CEO Trader UK Seth Brody Partner, PSG, Apax Partners Tom Evans CEO, Bankrate, Inc. Jeff Boyd CEO, priceline.com KnowledgeNow: Organisational focus Building alignment Leading executives discuss the practical implications of building organisational focus. Tying in many of the themes