Parish Capital Advisors uses Salesforce to Drive Private Equity Fund of Funds

“We are big believers in salesforce.com and SaaS. Aside from that, there are few infrastructure or best practice tools for investing. We’ve looked around—there are a number of modeling tools but little beyond that. Salesforce is both a CRM for us and also an ERP for us. Our shop floor is our people using Salesforce.”


Challenge
  • Parish Capital Advisors, a private equity fund of funds with offices in Chapel Hill, NC and London, sought a database to track the funds in which it and its clients invest
  • The firm’s business is based on investment opportunities rather than pure selling events so the solution had to accommodate this unique model
  • A dearth of best practices tools for the investment industry forced the firm to seek out a CRM solution it could customize to fill this need

Solution
  • After considering Microsoft Access, GoldMine, and ACT!, Parish Capital selected and deployed Salesforce Professional Edition to all 20-plus of the firm’s employees across both offices
  • Dashboards track investors and prospects, providing ongoing metrics on business success in a simplified format
  • Investment professionals generate reports, empowering employees with greater insight into fund activity
  • From the AppExchange, Parish Capital downloaded Business Objects’ Crystal Reports, which drives custom reporting on underlying funds and companies in which its funds invest
  • Web-to-lead functionality routes prospects who visit the firm’s corporate site directly into Salesforce where advisors can then act on those opportunities
  • Custom tabs allow the firm to track many different kinds of investments

Results
  • Every deal and transaction is driven through Salesforce
  • By installing Crystal Reports from the AppExchange, Parish Capital is able to integrate with its existing accounting software
  • With simple modifications, Parish Capital customized the solution to its model and to meet its investing objectives
  • The firm’s Salesforce-centric best practices win the praise of its underlying portfolio fund representatives
 
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