Know the Operating Upside Before You Acquire
We evaluate which functions can be redesigned with governed AI workflows and an owned offshore team, then quantify the opportunity, execution risk and first 100-day priorities.
Not a dev shop. Not staff augmentation. Not a consultant's deck.
The team that diligences the deal is the team that builds and runs the operation, inside your entity.
Powered by Trace, our diligence reads how the business actually operates before you commit.
The deliverable.
Operating teardown of the target
An operating teardown of the target's back office and workflows: where cost sits, what is manual, what scales with revenue.
AI-equipped, offshore-built operating model
Which functions get rebuilt, the realistic headcount and cost takeout, the margin and EBITDA lift.
The value-creation bridge
How the operating rebuild flows to a re-rating: from a services multiple to a platform multiple.
Capture plan, timeline, and risk read
A capture plan and timeline your investment committee can use, including what would make the thesis not work.
Seven workstreams, run in parallel
Each one can independently kill or resize the thesis. That is the point of running them before you commit capital rather than after.
Operating baseline
What the function costs today, how the work is distributed, and where volume actually sits. Establishes the denominator every later number is measured against.
Workflow suitability
Which workflows are stable enough, measurable enough and data-accessible enough to become governed AI roles, and which are not. The honest answer usually excludes more than sponsors expect.
Data and systems readiness
Systems of record, integration surface, data quality and access paths. A workflow that looks automatable often is not, because the data it needs is not reachable.
Regulatory constraints
What the sector, the contracts and the jurisdictions permit offshore, and which activities must stay onshore or stay human.
Offshore feasibility
Role families, city fit, hiring depth and realistic ramp for the specific skill mix. Where the talent does not exist at the assumed price, we say so.
Management capacity
Whether the target’s management team has the bandwidth and the appetite to run the change. The most common reason a sound plan does not land.
Value bridge
How the operating moves connect to the model: cost takeout, margin effect, the timing of each, and what has to be true for the bridge to hold.
Five artifacts your investment committee can use
Diligence findings
What we found, function by function, with the evidence behind each finding.
Opportunity model
The quantified upside with assumptions exposed, so your team can pressure-test the inputs rather than accept an output.
Risk register
Execution risks, ranked, with the mitigation and the owner for each. Includes what would make the thesis not work.
Ownership recommendation
Which structure fits the target: COPO, BOT or FLEXI, and why, including what it does to the exit narrative.
100-day plan
What happens in the first hundred days after close, sequenced, with named accountability.
Inputs, access and management time
Stated up front so it can be scheduled against the deal calendar rather than discovered mid-process.
- From the data room
- Headcount by function with roles and locations, payroll or cost-per-function detail, an org chart, the systems inventory, and any existing outsourcing or offshore contracts. Volume data for the functions under review where it exists.
- Access we ask for
- Read-only. We do not require production system access to run this work, and we do not ask for customer or patient data.
- Management time
- Typically six to ten hours total across the target’s function leads: a scoping call, one working session per function under review, and a findings review. Scheduled around the deal calendar rather than against it.
- Timeline
- Three to five weeks from kickoff to findings, compressible where the signing date requires it. We will tell you what compression costs in confidence rather than pretend it is free.
An operator's read, not a slide.
We are not a quality-of-earnings provider and not a strategy consultancy. The team that diligences the deal is the team that builds and runs the operation, so you get an operator's read, not a slide.
It is complementary to your financial, legal, and operating-partner work, not a replacement for it. The bankers run the financials, counsel runs the legal, and we run the value-creation lens.
Not a QoE provider
QoE confirms the earnings. We tell you what those earnings could be after AI and offshore, and what it would take to get there.
Not a strategy consultancy
We deliver an executable operating model from the team that would build it, not a deck from the team that hands you a follow-on engagement.
Not a dev shop or BPO
We do not staff-augment. We hire and run a dedicated team inside the entity you own, equipped with AI on the existing systems.
Stage 1 of how we engage.
Stage 1 of how we engage: AI Value Creation Diligence, then Blueprint, then Build & Operate. The lightest, earliest way in, before you close.
Diligence answers whether to buy, and what the target is worth after AI and offshore. Once you own it, the Blueprint answers how we build it.
What this work does not provide.
AI Value Creation Diligence is an operating assessment. It is deliberately not a substitute for the other workstreams on a deal, and we do not price it as one. This engagement does not provide:
- Legal opinions or transaction documentation.
- Tax structuring or tax opinions.
- Accounting opinions, audit work, or a quality-of-earnings report.
- Cybersecurity certification or a penetration-test attestation.
- A valuation opinion. How a buyer prices the asset remains the buyer’s decision.
We work alongside the advisers who do provide those opinions, and our findings are written so they can be reconciled against a QoE and a legal read rather than competing with them.
Talk to us before your next close.
A short conversation about a target, your timeline, and where the operating value sits. No deck. No pitch.