Sabio's Next Four Years
Sabio turned four this month. It sure seems like time has flown by lately and normally this thought would dismay me – but, from the perspective of Sabio, this is a very good thing. It’s amazing to think that we started the company with an idea, and here we are four years later having completed our strongest year yet – all despite a global pandemic…this prompted us to spend some time reflecting back and thinking forward towards the future.
Our goal was to find a way to leverage all the experience and expertise we have accumulated over 30+ years in the technology industry, and to apply it where it would have the most impact. We also wanted to do it our way on our terms, so we decided to strike out on our own. It is certainly gratifying to see your ideas proven out, all while providing excellent value to our clients.
We formed Sabio to do just that – to provide high-value, cost-effective technology solutions to the middle market private equity industry using a modern approach that we call the Quality of Technology (or Q·of·T). Having spent a good deal of our careers working with large companies and multi-national corporations, we felt there was a high degree of need in the middle market for impactful strategic technology advice that is usable. A key driver of change in the middle market over recent years has been the increasing involvement of private equity and their desire to maximize the value of their investments (and to provide liquidity to entrepreneurs and business owners). While technology now plays a very key role in the value creation process, most middle market PE firms do not employ full-time technology advisory staff. This is the gap we fill.
At the core, we view technology in the middle market as one progressive and continuous process containing four components – the entire process is designed to create and maintain alignment between the business strategy and the technology that enables that strategy:
Technology Due Diligence – a current state assessment versus the defined business strategy that identifies technology assets and liabilities expressed as a “balance sheet” (we call this accordingly the “Technology Balance Sheet”)
Technology Strategy – a plan that defines the target state technology architecture, operating model, and the implementation roadmap (with cost estimates) to achieve that state
Integration / Divestiture Planning – since a great deal of PE value creation comes in the form of bolt-on acquisitions, it is critical from the technology perspective to create an organizational structure and an integration playbook to effectively manage the process; this also may include divestiture planning in cases where a bolt-on is being carved out of a larger parent company
Technology Refresh – since no plan and no roadmap is set in stone, regular methodical refreshes of the technology strategy versus the business strategy is critical to long-term success
Besides our approach, a primary reason Sabio has been successful is due to how we operate. We have an extensive network of technology experts, gurus, and practitioners, which we have fully leveraged over the past four years. Because of our strong performance to date, we will be undertaking an effort this year to involve even more practitioners using our innovative business model that continues to provide the value our clients have come to expect from us.
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