A focused 3–5 day assessment for PE-backed businesses within 12–18 months of a transaction. Six pillars, scored against buyer DD criteria. Outputs a prioritised remediation plan you can act on immediately.
Technology risks that surface in buyer due diligence are solvable — but usually not on the timeline the process demands. Identifying them 12–18 months out gives room to close them systematically.
Full time to run a structured audit, close risks, and embed governance. Technology becomes a value driver rather than a discount risk.
Time to run a focused assessment, prioritise the highest-impact remediation, and deliver evidence before buyer engagement. Where most Clarity DD engagements sit.
Time is tight but still workable. Focus narrows to the risks that would materially delay a transaction or trigger valuation discounts.
Below six months, structural technology fixes are rarely possible. The focus shifts to evidencing what exists defensibly and preparing management narratives for buyer questions.
The DD readiness assessment scores your business against the same six pillars covered in the DD Readiness Scorecard — free to download and self-assess before engaging.
Is the estate documented? Are dependencies mapped? Are single points of failure named and mitigated? Can a buyer understand the shape from your documentation alone?
Are business-critical integrations documented and monitored? Do you know which ones would cause immediate disruption if they failed? Is there version control?
How are technology decisions made? Is total technology spend visible? Are risks reviewed regularly by the executive team, with clear ownership and resolution?
Are the core security policies current, applied, and defensible? Is access reviewed? Is incident response documented and rehearsed? Is offboarding structured?
Is adoption consistent across teams? Is training current and accessible? Do you have visibility of whether deployed tools are actually being used?
Is there a defensible AI position? Are use cases identified with quantified commercial value? Can you answer a buyer's question about AI with more than a slide?
The DD Readiness Scorecard is a 30-question self-assessment across the same six pillars used in the paid engagement. Freely shareable — take 20 minutes to score your business honestly and see where the gaps sit.
Sized to give leadership teams a defensible view of where technology risk sits and what to do about it — before buyer engagement.
Assessment is delivered personally by James Scott, founder of The Clarity Partnership. Every stakeholder conversation, every finding, and every recommendation is delivered by the same senior operator from start to finish.
Interim Technology Director preparing PE-backed UK/US professional services firm for exit. SPOF closed, policy stack refreshed, VCP roadmap delivered, supplier exposure surfaced and addressed.
PE-backed post-merger integration. Established integration governance across SAP, Dynamics, Salesforce, EDI. Transformation playbook, VCP, and Technology Service Agreement delivered for handover.
2.5 years leading ACTPM implementation across UK, DACH, East Europe. SAP ECC integration via Mulesoft/Azure. Two carve-outs (Elida, Tea Co) delivered in parallel with core programme.
Client delivery for Salesforce-backed Go-to-Market AI platform. Use case definition, RFP automation, AI governance for portco-level rollouts across consumer goods, legal, technology, and services.
12–18 months before an expected transaction is the pragmatic window. Earlier is stronger. Capability transfer, policy refresh, supplier renegotiation, and architecture clarity all take months, not weeks. Businesses that start at month 18 or beyond typically have time to close the risks that trigger valuation discounts.
A DD readiness assessment is sharper, faster, and specifically scored against the questions buyers ask in technology due diligence. It runs 5 days of client engagement versus 4 weeks for a full audit. Both surface risk and produce a remediation plan; the DD variant is optimised for businesses close to a transaction.
DD readiness assessments are quoted as fixed fees. Standard: £9,500 for a 5-day client engagement. Extended: £15,000 for larger or more complex estates (200+ people, multi-country, complex integration layers). Exact quotes provided on discovery call. Discovery calls are free.
Six pillars: technology landscape and system architecture, integration and automation, governance and decision-making, security and access, training and adoption, and AI readiness. Buyers probe for single-person dependencies, undocumented integrations, aged supplier contracts, policy gaps, unclear architecture, and the absence of a defensible AI position. The DD Readiness Scorecard walks through the specific questions in each pillar.
Technology risk in DD typically shows up as a valuation discount, delayed close, or specific remediation escrow. Discounts of 5–10% are common on mid-market transactions where technology risks are material. In practice, most of those risks are solvable in the 12–18 month window before exit if identified early.
The assessment produces a scored risk register, a prioritised remediation plan with named owners and delivery horizons, and a defensible action list. Follow-on options include a VCP-to-actionable-roadmap engagement, interim technology leadership to close the risks, or DD evidence pack assembly ahead of buyer engagement. Follow-on work is discussed on delivery; there is no obligation to continue.
Start with the scorecard for a structured self-assessment, or book a 30-minute conversation to discuss a specific transaction timeline and where the exposure sits.