Track your Stack: How to conduct a Technology Assessment for one or many companies

This 7 minute read shares a roadmap for conducting a comprehensive inventory and assessment of technology platforms using a case study example with a portfolio of 46 companies in 4 industry segments.  

Struggling to manage your technology platforms effectively?  You are not alone.  Many mid-sized organizations struggle to maintain a complete inventory of the many platforms, SaaS tools and databases in use. Now imagine how much more challenging tracking the technology stacks that might exist in a portfolio of 185 companies, the average size of the top 25 US PE firms (IPE). This complexity magnifies the risks and opportunities of platform management essential for risk and cost management

Faced with this complexity and resistance from founders who know their business, most PE, family offices, and acquisition based companies choose to take a hands off approach to the tech stacks in their portfolio. As long as the portfolio companies provide the financials and performance reporting in standard format, portfolio companies are generally left alone to make their own platform decisions for the 6 years they remain in the portfolio.  This is a mistake.

Despite the complexity, these companies are missing out on significant value derived from a better understanding of their platforms and datasets.  Indeed, this complexity not only increases the risks of inefficiencies and compliance failures but also obscures valuable opportunities for data-driven growth. For many portfolio based companies, the real top-line value comes from being able to leverage customer and operational data across the portfolios to find new segments, products, and customer prospects. 

Case Study: Conduct a tech stack assessment for a Private Equity Company with 46 portfolio companies

A SaaS based portfolio company of a US based PE firm was forced to pay significant penalties to the European Union for GDPR compliance failures related to outdated software and data management practices.  Because of the cost and reputation impact of this event, the PE company decided to conduct an audit of the technology platforms of all the companies in their portfolio to create an inventory of all known platforms and identify and take action to avoid similar penalties from their other companies.  The following steps outline the approach Perform Solutions took to deliver on the core expectations and identify additional sources of value. 

Step-by-Step Guide to Technology Inventory and Assessment

1. Define the Scope

As Yogi Berra reminds us, “If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll get somewhere else.” This simple maxim underscores the need to clarify the objectives first to ensure the best outcomes. In the case study, the primary objective was to reduce compliance risks, but the audit also uncovered opportunities for operational and customer data synergies. For example: 

• Are you focused on streamlining systems across similar functions like CRM or ERP?
• Are you looking to assess compliance risks or gaps in security measures?
• Is the goal to identify high-performing systems for broader adoption across the group?
• Are you looking to identify synergies between portfolio companies’ customers, vendors, or partners?

With clarity of the defined objectives, the team is able to adjust the assessment to ensure the right level and areas of focus to capturing the platform inventory.  

2. Create an Inventory 

One of the fastest ways to identify the many platforms in your organization is to follow the money by tracing financial records and contracts. For larger tasks, enlist discovery tools to identify and capture relevant information in a very short time. 

2.1 Choose a format

There’s a lot of information you can include in your inventory and it can be helpful to review a few templates before finalizing your own criteria. Check out IBM, Microsoft, Smartsheet and Faddom.  Consider these a starting point, with the need to adding or remove elements based on your specific business and objectives.  Try to rank each item in terms of priority and flag the essential or must have items to help guide the collection step.  

2.2 Collect information

There are a number of approaches to collect inventory data that can be used alone or together based on the desired level of detail, resources, and timeline.   

1. Accounts payable for a 2 year period.  This will identify the big ticket platforms like CRM, ERP and other recognizable names but will not include smaller SaaS based tools often purchased at a department or team level.   
2. Credit and purchasing cards for a 12 month period at a department and team level.   Just because these “shadow” platforms are priced low enough to exist off central IT’s main radar does not mean they are low risk.  Almost any solution type, from lead generation to generative AI can be operating in obscurity.   
3. Contracts and Licensing Records: Contracts and subscriptions can uncover redundancies and highlight tools with significant cost implications.
4. Discovery Tools can automate much of the inventory process for larger portfolios as was the case for this client. Some options include:

• IT Asset Management tools like Service Now can generate real-time software and hardware asset inventory.  We used Solarwinds to capture an initial inventory that the portfolio companies could confirm. Many were thrilled to be provided an inventory they didn't have the resources to capture.  
• SaaS Management like Torii or Zylo can be excellent for tracking cloud-based applications and identifying unused or underutilized licenses.
• Network Discovery Tools like BetterCloud, Qualys or ManageEngine help uncover hidden systems and devices connected to the network.

3. Compile Results: 

In my experience with the case study, this step was much more challenging than expected.  Challenges included normalizing platform names, coordinating timelines between collection tactics, and semi and incomplete surveys.  We chose to run the accounting review and Solarwind solutions at the beginning of the project and use them to accelerate the survey process.  

4. Conduct Stakeholder Interviews/Surveys

Quantitative data is essential, but qualitative insights add depth. With your extensive inventory in hand, the next step is develop a survey and/or interview guide to capture the qualitative side.  This step should confirm what’s known, identify gaps, and flag risks and opportunities. To ensure you involve the correct IT and department leaders, it’s recommended to share the objectives and the survey in advance.

1. Review and confirm the draft inventory from step 1, including the contract expiry dates for core platforms.
2. Identify 5 -10 mission-critical systems and deep dive into challenges and best practices
3. Identify up to 5 pain points or challenges with existing tools including processes that could be automated
4. Ask Stakeholders to describe or share standard security tools and protocols in place by the organization and any recent audits results.  
5. Request examples of Dashboards, KPI’s or scorecards the company uses for IT asset and system management

Stakeholder feedback is invaluable for prioritizing improvements and ensuring buy-in. In the case study, these interviews revealed common challenges of fragmented data systems that made risk and compliance management more difficult and discouraged collaboration of shared clients across the portfolio.  These findings prompted a focus on CRM standardization for portfolio companies within 2 of the 4 industry segments where collaboration was important.  These companies either agreed to adopt a compatible CRM within a 2 year horizon or adopt standard field elements that would enable alternate integration approaches. 

5. Establish Metrics and Benchmarks

A successful assessment hinges on measuring the right things. In the case of the PE client, the objective was to establish a set of basic measurements applicable across companies and to flag solutions that managed customer data for optimization and risk management. 

• Internal Integration: Percentage of systems that are fully integrated within the company’s tech stack.  Focus efforts on core platforms that by nature require integration such as, analytics, CRM and marketing automation, ERP, and service. 
• Redundancy: Number of overlapping tools serving similar functions. I can recall while working at the International Rescue Committee, we found 6 different analytics tools in a stack of 75 platforms.
• Scalability: Readiness to handle spikes and variations in workloads or user demands.
• Cybersecurity: Compliance with industry standards and incident response times.
• Privacy Compliance: Each country has specific data privacy regulations. This gets complicated in companies and portfolios with multiple locations of the legal entity and data storage. We decided to de-couple the process to define the regulations from the technology assessment and run the two in parallel (the legal process took much longer to complete).
• Cost Efficiency: Calculate the total and per category costs.  Divide your total and per category baseline totals by the number of active customers, employees, or other quantification that best represents scale. For example, the client’s audit revealed that CRM costs were at or below industry averages but that a variety of storage and retrieval platforms increased the total cost to 20% above industry average.

• Interoperability (Advanced): For select platform categories index like CRM or ERP, map how well the portfolio’s solution would integrate with a central standard.  Looking at CRM and Marketing Automation tools in our case study, we found 8 of the 46 portfolio companies  used the same CRM, Salesforce.  Another 30 used Dynamics, Hubspot and Oracle, with the rest using a variety of smaller or industry specific tools.  

5. Synthesize Findings

5.1 Master Inventory Compilation: With all this great input now available, its time to consolidate the collected data into a centralized, structured inventory. This should include:

• Platform names, vendors, and versions.
• Functional roles (e.g., CRM, billing, HR).
• Integration status, highlighting dependencies or gaps.
• Annual costs, broken down by subscription fees, maintenance, and licensing.
• Usage metrics, including active users and frequency of use.
• Identified risks, such as compliance gaps or unsupported software versions.

5.2 Opportunity Identification: Analyze the inventory to uncover opportunities for optimization:

• Cost Reduction: Identify redundant tools performing overlapping functions and then quantify potential savings from eliminating unused licenses or migrating to consolidated platforms. Example: Consolidating six analytics platforms into one led to a 30% reduction in software costs.
• Risk Mitigation: Highlight platforms with outdated versions or end-of-life statuses that could pose compliance risks. From this create a remediation plan prioritizing critical systems with the highest regulatory or security exposure.
• Revenue Growth: Leverage portfolio-wide customer and operational data to identify untapped markets, product opportunities, or cross-selling prospects. Example: Standardizing CRM tools across eight companies enabled centralized customer segmentation and unlocked new B2B sales opportunities.

6. Benchmark Development: The final step is to establish a benchmarking framework for future assessments. Use metrics like cost efficiency, integration rates, and cybersecurity compliance as a baseline for ongoing improvement. Use strategic benchmarks to address specific objectives.  For example, to address the GDPR issue that prompted the project, we created a % of core platforms compliant with GDPR based on internal practices and the adequacy of the platforms and versions used in that company.  

Case Study Results and Conclusion: Unlocking the Power of Cohesion

The PE firm made up the cost of the platform assessment project in the first few month from quick-win savings of unused licenses and platforms. The firm was able to recognize and mitigate a future data scaling challenge and work to secure preferred rates for all its companies with a data management platform selected for its compatibility with existing tools. Over the following 2 years, the firm was able to migrate all existing companies to a compatible and compliant martech stack. More importantly, the new insights generated from analyzing all the customers and vendors improved collaborative selling and revenue growth.

Despite the complexities conducting a technology assessment is a worthwhile endeavor for any company or group of companies looking to manage costs, reduce risks, and ensure interoperability. A structured assessment uncovers hidden efficiencies, reduces costs, mitigates risks, and creates a foundation for growth through better data and platform management. As technology evolves, maintaining a clear understanding of your tech stack ensures adaptability to future challenges, from compliance updates to leveraging AI-driven insights.