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Private equity firms need a UX playbook. Not just for SaaS portfolio companies, but for every business they acquire. UX and design thinking drive real, measurable ROI across internal processes, employee tools, business data, and operational efficiency. It does not matter whether you make medical devices, supply chain widgets, or government equipment. There is some part of that business a solid design philosophy can improve.
Why Do Private Equity Firms Need a UX Playbook?
You are an executive-level strategist and manager. You have a savvy business mind. PE firms come to you first because you know how to quickly fix problems and create lasting value. Your ability to drive that value is dependent on the playbooks you have developed over the years.
We are willing to bet there is one playbook you are missing: a UX playbook.
It is easy to get lulled into thinking that great UX is only for digital products. If your private equity firm does not have a SaaS product in its portfolio, it may be missing out on a secret weapon.
Because, if you had not noticed, we live in a digital world. Your employees use digital products to get their jobs done. The efficiency of your business processes and your company's ability to analyze business data all rely on UX.
Whether you are making medical devices, outfitting the government with military equipment, or making random widgets that most of the world could not name, UX and design thinking can improve some part of your business.
We know this is a tough sell. You rely on your tried and true playbooks for a reason. They have a proven track record of delivering solid returns for your investors.
But hear us out. We have a three-point pitch for why you need to consider adding a UX playbook. It could become your new secret weapon.
What is a UX Playbook and Why Can't Your In-House Team Handle It Alone?
No matter how good the team you inherited is, they cannot move as fast as a UX team that has a proven playbook of moves that work. For starters, if they knew how to solve the problem, they likely would have done it by now.
Private equity firms invest in companies to optimize and turn them around. Those optimizations need to be permanent, not stuck on as a band-aid to fundamental problems.
The trick is finding ways to do that while not getting caught in the weeds. You want to spend your time dealing with strategy. You need to know that your business is not rotting away on the inside from poor processes and systems.
Clean, strong processes and design thinking methods can change the culture of your business from within.
In the same way your bosses and investors hired you for your experience, you want to hire third-party partners who have proven experience across a wide variety of contexts.
Your job is to allocate capital. The job of a UX team like Drawbackwards is to use its brain trust to muck around in the details and infuse value into the lifeblood of the company.
There is not a UX problem we have not seen at this point and we know how to solve them. Ask some of our previous clients.
Even if you do have UX expertise on your team, writers, designers, and developers can get stagnant when working on the same products or problems over and over. It helps to have a team bring an outside perspective on the same problems your team has been wrestling with for years.
If you happen to have invested in a really broken business, the potential opportunity provided by a third-party UX expert is even greater. You are going to have to make some investments to fix it no matter what. Those investments will cost you, whether in cash or in lost profits.
Why not bring in somebody who already knows how to fix those problems? A team like that can get your cash flowing quicker so the investment pays for itself.
There are more designing, writing, and development jobs than there are designers, writers, and developers in the world right now. Do you want to be out there looking for them when you need to be optimizing your user experience?
A team that is ready to hit the ground running will infuse value throughout the organization and generate returns while building stamina and resiliency into your team at a fundamental level.
How Does a Strong Design Philosophy Drive Real Business ROI?
You likely have a variety of playbooks that you have been running for years because they have a proven track record of delivering value.
Most of those playbooks come from industry associations that know how to package and communicate the value of their services.
This is where UX design firms are at a disadvantage. We have not done a good job as an industry of communicating the ROI of UX, despite the fact that research shows every $1 invested in UX returns $100 to the business.
Even more difficult is helping businesses not focused on UX understand how it can help them.
Unless you are a VC fund doing tech-related work and building consumer-facing products, you likely do not have anything related to UX in your top five playbooks.
Why would you? The easy assumption is that UX cannot drive value in a business that revolves around creating widgets and selling them to manufacturers.
Folks in consumer businesses can easily see the value of building and enhancing user and customer experience. After all, it makes sense that reduced customer churn and increased customer engagement lead to higher conversions, retention, and loyalty, all of which in turn drive willingness to pay, price uplift, lifetime customer value, and revenue. Those are all familiar parts of a UX playbook for digital products and consumer services and goods.
The truth is, a solid design philosophy has applications well beyond customer-facing UX and UI.
Whether it is optimizing the implementation of your internal digital tools or using design thinking to enhance your business processes, a solid design philosophy can drive true long-lasting value and mitigate risk.
A good design philosophy goes directly against the old saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." Businesses of all types are bogged down by too many processes and tools that are not broken but could be a whole lot better.
How Does a UX Package Allow You to Plug and Play Process Improvements?
Good design is like the grease in a high-performing engine. It helps everything move faster and smoother. If you are ranking the top five things that will drive value in the company in the next five years, there is a good chance that design thinking and a solid design philosophy could accelerate all five of them.
This is especially true if you get started early. Strong design culture takes time to build and permeate through the organization. Injecting it into your business in year 1 will give it time to mature over the next four years. By the time you have reached your 5-year horizon, you will be able to point to a tangible culture change.
The question is not always "Where is UX most valuable and needed?" The question is, "Where is a strong design philosophy that drives efficiency and process improvement not needed?"
The most control you can have over a business is the quality of the people (and third-party partners) you hire and the systems and processes you build. There is not a private equity firm out there that does not want process improvement. But there are many that do not understand how UX and design thinking can drive that improvement.
Here is what that looks like in practice:
- Want to increase your rate of revenue per inside salesperson? Design thinking gives you a competitive edge.
- Want to increase sales productivity or get faster turnarounds in your service capability to increase win rates? Design thinking can help.
- Want to find efficiencies in your B2B business, or get better business information at your fingertips through more useful data visualizations, charts, and graphs? UX design thinking can help.
- Want to deploy real-time metrics and data tracking with clickable access to underlying process features? UX design thinking can help.
Plug and play UX packages can help you easily automate processes that will help scale your business without adding headcount as you grow.
Good UX is essential to helping your team get more done in less time. You want their brainpower and expertise put into value-add strategies and improvements, not on mundane tasks that the system can manage for them.
Why Do So Many Companies Miss This Opportunity?
Many companies struggle to connect their mission, vision, and values to their internal processes and culture.
Many companies have never taken the time to connect their customer journey (consumer or not) with their employee processes and tools.
Many companies have never completed a single service blueprint, much less connected the many random one-off blueprints scattered across the business.
Most companies will look at UX and stick it in with a marketing rebrand effort, wash their hands and call it a day.
Those companies are missing an opportunity to uncover the gold sitting inside their own businesses.
What does UX have to do with a Tier 1 or 2 supply chain business? Potentially a lot when you think of it less as UX and more as a design philosophy.
How Can You Get More Value Out of Your Investments?
You have plenty of high-level management consultants and other third-party service providers to call upon when trying to optimize a business in a five-year timeframe.
We believe Drawbackwards has a role to play in your toolbox. But we know it might take some convincing.
Let's start a conversation, do a free audit, and show you how we can help infuse value into your investment quickly and permanently.
FAQ
What is a UX playbook for private equity firms? A UX playbook is a structured approach to applying user experience and design thinking across an acquired business. It covers internal tools, employee processes, data visualization, and operational efficiency, not just customer-facing products.
Can UX really drive ROI in a non-tech or non-consumer business? Yes. Research shows every $1 invested in UX returns $100 to the business. Even in manufacturing, B2B, or supply chain companies, design thinking improves processes, reduces waste, and increases productivity in ways that show up directly on the bottom line.
Why should a private equity firm hire a third-party UX team instead of relying on in-house talent? In-house teams get stagnant and are often too close to the problem. A third-party UX team brings a proven playbook, an outside perspective, and the speed to move faster than an inherited team ever could. In a five-year hold period, speed and impact matter.
When in the investment cycle should a PE firm bring in a UX partner? Year 1. Strong design culture takes time to build and mature. Starting early means by the time you hit your 5-year horizon, the culture change is tangible and the value is built in, not bolted on.
What specific business outcomes can design thinking improve in a portfolio company? Sales productivity, revenue per inside salesperson, service turnaround times, win rates, B2B operational efficiency, data visibility through better dashboards and reporting, and the ability to scale without adding headcount.
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