A buy-and-build platform rarely inherits one CRM. It inherits 5 — Salesforce at the platform, Microsoft Dynamics at one add-on, multiple HubSpots at the next, Pipedrive after that, nothing at all at the one you just signed.
So there is no group view, and no way to see the cross-sell the value creation plan is built on. We consolidate the portfolio onto one HubSpot inside the first 12 months of the hold — so EBITDA growth is auditable from day one, not assembled 3 weeks before exit.
A buy-and-build thesis is priced on synergies — cross-sell and upsell across the brands you just bought. But when every acquisition runs its own CRM, that revenue stays invisible: the group cannot see what is being left on the table, and cannot target what could be won on top. The CRM is not a software decision. It is the operating layer the synergy case runs on.
After 3 to 10 acquisitions, the platform runs on 4 to 5 CRMs plus 20 to 40 satellite tools. None of them talk. Each local managing director swears by their own.
The cost is never one line. It hides in licence sprawl, duplicate headcount, rekeying, and the cross-sell revenue no one can see across the brands.
Something forces the call — the kickoff of the value creation plan, a new group chief revenue officer, the first full limited-partner pack, or the bolt-on that finally breaks reporting.
Hold periods are 2 to 4 years. Every quarter the stack is left alone, the synergy case slips, the data room gets messier, and exit diligence gets more expensive. The work moves against you, not with you.
Owners who move fast optimise for the same 5 things — because open-ended consulting scopes and systems-integrator timelines are exactly what a hold period cannot absorb.
Each portfolio company was bought for its customer base, its management, or its product. None of them were bought for their CRM. By the time the group has 3 or more brands, the stack looks like this on the left — and needs to look like the right before the first full year-end group audit.
4 to 5 CRMs, zero group view.
One portal, one data model, one group view.
When marketing, sales and service data live in 5 places, everyone with a stake loses every quarter. We agree the reports each of them needs in joint customer journey workshops, then build the portal backwards from there.
The business case rests on two independent levers — a top-line lever and a bottom-line lever — plus a reporting lever that earns its keep at exit. All three compound over a 2 to 4 year hold.
One contact database across all brands. One marketing engine. One customer view. The cross-sell in the synergy case stops being a slide and starts being pipeline, because the data is finally in one place to target.
5 CRMs become 1. 20 to 40 satellite tools become 5 to 8. Local revenue-operations spend becomes one group function. The integration debt each company carries separately is retired once, centrally.
Pipeline, customer acquisition cost, gross and net retention, cohort economics — produced the same way across the group, every month, traceable to source. The data room is ready months before the process, not weeks.
Three inputs. One consolidated number you can take into the next value creation plan review.
Honest numbers in. A defensible range out.
Benchmarked from recent SalesPlaybook buy-and-build engagements.
A buy-and-build consolidation is a sequenced programme, not a big-bang migration. The central HubSpot is stood up on the platform company first, then a pilot company proves the pattern, then the rest of the portfolio follows in waterfall batches. Revenue keeps closing in the old stacks until each company's fixed-Friday cutover, and group reporting goes live on day one, getting richer with every company that joins.
A 2 to 4 year hold almost always sees a new group chief revenue officer land in year one and a new chief marketing officer in year two. The stack they inherit decides how fast they can make the value creation plan real. One HubSpot makes the handover a half-day exercise, not a 3-month forensic rebuild.
In the portfolio we see most often, a new group chief revenue officer comes in between months 6 and 12 — brought in to execute the value creation plan. They arrive to find the answer to "what is the pipeline" scattered across 5 systems. They spend their first quarter forensically rebuilding it. That is a quarter the hold period does not have.
One central HubSpot changes the handover. The incoming group chief revenue officer inherits a single portal with defined lifecycle stages, named pipelines per brand, cross-sell attribution, and live limited-partner reporting. The operating partner sees the same picture the chief revenue officer sees. So do the local managing directors. And when the same thing happens on the marketing side a year later, it happens again without rebuilding anything.
That is what the operating layer is: the people move, the number does not.
A recent buy-and-build consolidation: a group built by acquisition across Europe, its inherited stacks pulled onto one portal — marketing, sales and service — while local operations kept running.
A European buy-and-build platform combining 9 specialist firms — more than 400 employees, EUR 64 million in revenue in 2024 — inherited a stack that included Salesforce at one firm, an ERP finance backbone, Pardot on the marketing side, and partial CRM setups across the rest. The rollout piloted one company first, then ran the rest in batches, consolidating marketing, sales and customer service onto one HubSpot while local operations kept running.
Talk to us about the same pattern →Consolidations fail for predictable reasons. We name each failure mode and the mitigation up front — written into the statement of work, before signing.
We stand up the central HubSpot and the first wave of portfolio companies — including Salesforce, Dynamics and Pipedrive migrations — in 3 to 9 months. Not the years a systems integrator burns before anything goes live. The operating partner sees the first group dashboards in week 8, and every later add-on joins on the same fast pattern.
Benchmarks based on recent scoped engagements, including a 9-firm European consolidation. Your final number depends on inherited stack, integration scope and the size of each company, all confirmed before signing.
The central HubSpot portal, business-unit architecture for each brand, marketing, sales and service hubs live on the platform company. First group dashboards.
Platform plus 4 to 9 companies onboarded in sequence — pilot first, then waterfall batches. Each cutover is fixed-scope and co-owned with the local managing director.
Ongoing revenue operations partnership with senior HubSpot expertise. Bi-weekly working sessions, hands-on portal work, limited-partner reporting maintenance, and onboarding for new add-ons as they close.
All prices in CHF, fixed-scope, invoiced against agreed milestones. HubSpot licences purchased by the group directly — we advise on seat count, contact tier and multi-company native discounts. Reference-client discount available on multi-company commitments. Final investment structure confirmed in the portfolio CRM audit before signing.
A senior HubSpot consultant walks through your portfolio's inherited stacks — Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, HubSpot, Pipedrive, spreadsheets — names the 6 biggest drags on the value creation plan, and outlines a fixed-scope roadmap to one group portal. No slides, no pitch, no obligation. Sized for the operating partner or the group chief revenue officer.