What Is Deal Operations?

Deal operations is the administrative and process work that a live deal process generates: records, files, trackers, pipeline, mapping and reporting. It is not difficult work, but it is constant, and in most firms it lands on the people whose time is worth the most.

What it covers

Deal process. Counterparty and deal process administration, pitch and deliverable filing, target and watchlist monitoring, sponsor and portfolio mapping, pipeline maintenance, lists and segmentation, deal and contact trackers, and the operational reporting that comes off all of it.

Engagement and delivery administration. The work around the engagement rather than the deal: staff allocation and resourcing, reconciliation of hours to engagements, post engagement reviews, engagement close down and handover, client surveys.

The value is in the rhythm rather than the individual tasks. Trackers updated the day something moves rather than the night before a pipeline meeting. Files where the firm keeps them, named the way the firm names them. Pipeline that reflects where things actually stand, so the reporting off it can be trusted without a reconciliation exercise first.

What it does not cover

We do not originate. Deal operations supports a deal process. It does not source opportunities, approach counterparties or hold relationships on the firm's behalf.

We do not advise on a deal. Judgement about a transaction, a valuation, a counterparty or a structure belongs entirely to the firm.

We do not replace an analyst. The work of analysing a target, building a model or forming a view is fee earning work. Deal operations is the administration around it.

We do not sit between the firm and its clients. Client contact stays with the firm.

Who normally owns it

Formally, nobody. In practice, whoever is nearest when it needs doing, which in a busy period means an associate or a VP doing filing at eleven at night.

That is the specific problem deal operations solves. The work is genuinely essential to a well run process, and it is genuinely a poor use of the time of the people who usually end up doing it.

How Clandon supports it

Deal Operations is a specialist line for advisory firms. A team works alongside the firm's own people on the process work, so originators and execution teams stay on conversations, negotiation and judgement. Analysts are allocated to the firm and are not shared across clients, and lists are never shared between clients.

Related resources

What Is Pipeline Maintenance?

Keeping a pipeline current enough that the reporting off it can be trusted.

What Is Delivery and Engagement Administration?

Resourcing, hours reconciliation, engagement close down and the reporting around them.

Deal Operations vs RevOps

Two functions that get confused, what each one owns, and why the distinction matters in advisory firms.

Who does your deal administration at eleven at night?

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