With Private Equity (PE) firms investing in a wide variety of businesses, being able to go to market at speed with a full eCommerce solution provides the lifeline that struggling brands need to bounce back. For firms looking to scale their business, Accelerator can provide everything you need to ensure your investment has the foundations to succeed.   

In our previous blog, we discussed how our Accelerator programme can help you get to market fast. Alongside the programme’s guaranteed go-live timeframe, it can support your brand in a myriad of other ways. In this article, we discuss some of the merits of Accelerator for PE brands. 

Scaling your operations without increasing your overheads

 “Diseconomies of scale occur when an additional production unit of output increases marginal costs, which results in reduced profitability. Instead of production costs declining as more units are produced (which is the case with economies of scale), the opposite happens, and costs increase with the production of each additional unit.”  

• The Corporate Finance Institute 

Let’s talk logistics. Scaling a company requires huge resource, from financial inputs to logistics and operations. With growth comes financial implications. From an operational perspective, how can you grow without increasing your team or outsourcing at a cost and becoming victim to the diseconomies of scale?  

“D2C businesses often face the dilemma of whether to build their own in-house teams of developers. While this may seem like an attractive option, it can be expensive and time-consuming. Developer salaries can be high, technology leadership is essential (and expensive) plus there can be challenges in hiring these roles in a very competitive recruitment market. A more effective solution can be to work with a team of development experts like Ampersand. It can offer the dual benefits of a lower cost than building and maintaining an in-house team while also providing businesses with the flexibility and agility they need to succeed in a rapidly changing market.”  

• Dan Conboy, Director of eCommerce Strategy at idhl 

 Accelerator helps to alleviate these operational concerns through our integrations and partnerships to create a system that facilitates growth. Tools such as Product Information Management platforms (PIM) allow for extensive and consistent data management, giving control of entire product inventories. Without the need for new team hires, a PIM allows you to manage your technical, usage and emotional data providing the user with better product experiences.   

Alongside PIMs, we work with a myriad of other tools specifically designed to increase output and reduce in-house workload, including search and merchandising tools and ERPs. Machine learning, ‘Search and Merch’ tools like Attraqt help cut down the manual input by creating specific rules surrounding products, sales and offers, and the system learns and works from these rules. Not only does this free up valuable team resource, but sales are also boosted thanks to providing highly relevant, search results to prospective customers.   

Ultimately, Accelerator and its toolbox remove the need for manual intervention between third-party systems. Not only does it enable your investment to scale and grow at a faster rate but the need for increasing team size and associated costs is also removed.   

Keeping up with technology to boost your investment

“Traditional retail architecture typically relies on monolithic and aging applications that dramatically hinder agility and upgrades while resulting in higher overall costs. Moving to a modular, microservice-based architecture can enable organizations to achieve greater flexibility and scalability”  

• McKinsey and Company  

  The industry that never sleeps, the digital world is constantly evolving. How can your business keep up with new technologies and implement them effectively? For PE firms we know that continuously adapting and improving your sites to support business growth is imperative. But with a multitude of roadblocks such as archaic sites and an intricate web of outdated systems, how can you ensure your investment piece doesn’t fall behind?   

 “In today’s fast-paced market, a successful D2C brand must be able to react quickly and cost-effectively to changes. This could mean implementing significant technological projects or developing entirely new sales channels, such as a marketplace. However, part of the risk lies in the speed of response and the necessary resources to enable this change. This is where having a scalable platform and an expert team of specialists can make all the difference. It provides a strong foundation for both responsiveness and resilience, often without the need for a large in-house team, enabling brands to stay ahead of the curve and deliver maximum value.”  

• Dan Conboy, Director of eCommerce Strategy at idhl 

As part of Accelerator, we create sites on Progressive Web Apps (PWAs). A nifty combination of mobile apps and mobile sites, PWAs provide a better experience for users, with a slicker and more responsive journey. Alongside the numerous user benefits, PWAs are much quicker to build than traditional web apps and as a by-product of this, are cheaper too. By leaning into this evolving technology, we can create sites at a rapid pace, while still offering the same functionality and results as native apps.   

Only one part of the puzzle, PWAs need to work with a host of other cutting-edge technologies to create a site that can support high-growth retailers. Accelerator supports the integration and cooperation of these technologies through our proprietary software, Snow. Behind-the-scenes third-party tools and systems that feed into Accelerator run through Snow. Sitting in the middle of the site’s architecture, Snow passes information between the platforms, allowing them to work together seamlessly without the need for them to be intricately tied.   

When your business outgrows a platform or tool, Snow can simply remove it from its infrastructure and replace it with a new, more fitting system. Comparatively, traditional builds find themselves stuck with heavily connected systems, meaning to update one they often must update them all. Through Snow, we can remove the outdated platform and nothing else will be influenced. This allows for almost unparalleled flexibility as your business grows.  

Our growth journey can support your growth journey

 Ampersand belongs to the idhl Group, a connected agency consisting of nine digital marketing brands that specialise in eCommerce, digital transformation and marketing solutions. As a group that is undergoing continuous growth and scaling at an unprecedented rate, we are no strangers to the myriad of challenges and opportunities that comes with growth potential.     

Backed by our own experiences, our range of expertise, and our Accelerator programme; Ampersand is uniquely placed to support Private Equity firms as you embark on your own eCommerce investment journey. If you’d like to discuss how Accelerator can be part of your business growth strategy, get in touch.