According to Harvard Business Review (Capozzi et al., 2025), Private equity-owned companies deliver 8–12% productivity gains in the first two years post-acquisition compared with just 2–4% for public peers.

Here are seven practices any commercial leader can apply:

1. Re-do your own due diligence.
Treat your business like an investor would. Challenge assumptions, quantify the “full potential” case, and refresh it every 24–36 months.

2. Build the team for the value thesis.
PE firms change 71% of CEOs in deals over $1B, and 38% within two years, ensuring leadership fits the strategy not the other way around.

3. Run a clean-sheet on labour.
Top-performing portfolio companies have reduced total labour costs by 30–60% within six months, not through cuts but through focus removing low-value work and redeploying top talent.

4. Eliminate bad revenue.
Revenue that doesn’t create cash flow destroys value. In one PE-backed technology company, identifying and removing loss-making products increased cash flow by 17%.

5. Execute relentlessly.
Break the value-creation plan into granular workstreams, track them weekly, and make results transparent. Accountability drives pace and precision.

6. Treat time as capital.
Most CEOs believe they spend 20% of time in internal meetings. Data shows it’s 50–70%. Reallocate time to priorities that directly create enterprise value.

7. Link incentives to value creation.
Tie marketing and sales performance to measurable value drivers pipeline velocity, CAC payback, NRR not just top-line growth.

The takeaway:
PE firms treat every lever as part of a single growth engine: fuel, ignition, and transmission working in sync. The same mindset applies to commercial leaders aiming to accelerate profitable growth without waiting for market conditions to change.