Every private equity leader has heard a version of this:
“We’ve had HubSpot for years but… Nobody uses it consistently. Reporting is unreliable. Nothing is documented. Every company does things differently. We can’t trust the data”
When systems are inconsistent, process live in someone's head, and reporting is unreliable, tribal knowledge becomes the bottleneck. When founders feel pressure from a new board and investors feel disconnected from the truth on the ground, trust erodes quickly.
In this blog, we will break down exactly why this scenario is so common, and how AdoptionHub exists to solve these roadblocks for private equity.
Distrust isn’t a software issue, it’s an architecture, process, and adoption issue.
The default state of a newly acquired portfolio company is often disorder. If PE doesn’t intervene fast with structure, standardization, and repeatable processes, chaos compounds.
How do PE firms create this necessary standardization?
Today, each of the top 25 funds (by Private Equity International rankings) has an internal operating group. - Source McKinsey.com
These groups drive real impact in terms of BI and standardized playbooks. In 2025 among PE-backed portfolio companies 54% of PortCos with 10M-100M revenue have predictive dashboards embedded in pricing, client reporting, etc. However, these reports are only as useful as the data behind it. How do PE firms ensure trusted data?
PE teams used to default to Salesforce. Today, more are switching to HubSpot, and not just because it’s easier. HubSpot’s out-of-the-box setup is incredibly intuitive.
| Giving PE Partners: | Giving PortCos: |
| Consistent Reporting | Consistent Reporting |
| Reduced Handholding | Reduced Handholding |
| Comparable KPIs | Shared Definitions |
| Faster Portfolio-Wide insights | Repeatable Processes |
| Repeatable Playbook for New Acquisitions | Minimal Onboarding Friction |
But more importantly:
A unified platform across the portfolio reduces operational drag.
After an acquisition, PE firms and founders often misalign. PE wants standardized reporting with decision ready data, and more often than not, founders operate with custom processes or undocumented systems. These differences cause serious risks and headaches for both parties involved. Without aligned processes, reporting becomes manual, untrustworthy, and slow. PE firms will start to lose trust in the provided data and ultimately, lose trust in the portco's operations.
The end result?
An alignment crisis.
Standardization speeds up onboarding, reduces chaos, provides reliable reporting, and accelerate value creation. Instead of rebuilding HubSpot for every new company, AdoptionHub lets PE firms create a standard model of the “ideal portal” and save it. Deploy that saved model to every new acquisition at ~90% completion and customize the remaining 10% without introducing chaos.
Process Rules give users the ability to serve a notification in any HubSpot process, that provides the right content at the right time. They are a secret weapon that tells every user "Here's what you need to do right now".
PE firms can use them to enforce qualification criteria, sales methodology steps, champion identification, engagement SLAs, missing data requirements, deal movement rules, and compliance obligations. Spanning across every portfolio company. For example, to negate missing data when creating a new contact in their CRM. PE firms can use Process Rules to serve a notification for the requirement to add an email address for the contact.
Process Rules catch the issue early and correct the behavior before it's too late.
Cards are content that PE firms can add directly into HubSpot. Cards present SOPs exactly where and when they are needed, not in a buried folder nobody can find. They are always visible and easy to update. Users can display media such as images, files, videos, and links. Explainer Cards sit inside the flow of work, trigger based on context, and are easy to update across all portfolio companies simultaneously.
PE firms can use Action Plans to teach portfolio companies their methodology, roll out new initiatives or frameworks, train new hires, track completion of critical steps, and auto-complete tasks based on actual data inside HubSpot. They create guided, contextual onboarding and training paths that auto-complete based on users actions. Think of action plans like a standardized checklist for training.
Each action plan consists of three different areas: tasks, sections, and phases. Tasks are action items that people will work on within their action plan. Users can set the task title, due date, details, assignees, and more. Sections track the progress of these tasks, to quickly see how many tasks are completed. Sections live inside of phases which tracks the overall top-level organizational structure progress. The first incomplete phase is shown to the user to ensure they stay on top of priority tasks and sections.
Giving both the portfolio company and PE team visibility into progress without email-chasing.
Updates give PE firms the ability to push in-app announcement to their portfolio companies team members.
Private equity thrives on clarity. AdoptionHub’s Updates tool allows PE operators to send change notices inside HubSpot, link users directly to affected pages, track who viewed the update, and who dismissed it. You can select the audience to update, the way it's displayed, and accompanying media. After publishing an update, you can use analytics to understand who saw it, who snoozed it, and who completed it. Ensuring everyone is on the same page and no one misses an update.
If a founder is ghosting you?
You’ll know.
PE firms need standardized process and reliable reporting across all portfolio companies to reduce operational risks, accelerate decision making, create repeatable playbooks, and prepare for scale. HubSpot paired with AdoptionHub, gives PE firms a repeatable operating system for their portcos. Using Process Rules, Explainer Cards, Action Plans, and Updates will arm PE firms with the best tools to take on new acquisitions, as seamlessly as possible.
Discover how AdoptionHub can help your PE portfolio standardize effectively! Schedule your AdoptionHub Demo today.