The 100-Day Value Creation Plan: From 'Strategic Pillars' to EBITDA

The Era of Financial Engineering is Dead

If you are still running the 2021 playbook, you are already behind. For the last decade, you could buy a decent platform at 12x, slap some leverage on it, wait three years, and sell it at 15x to a larger sponsor. The market did the heavy lifting. That wind has stopped blowing.

According to KPMG's 2025 data, global EV/EBITDA multiples have compressed from 27x in 2021 to 18x in 2024. Simultaneously, the median hold period has stretched to 6.7 years—the longest in nearly two decades. The math has fundamentally changed. You can no longer rely on multiple expansion to generate your IRR; you have to manufacture it through operational excellence.

The problem is that most "100-Day Plans" are theater. They are 80-page slide decks created by generalist consultants who have never written code or carried a bag. They focus on "strategic alignment" and "synergy identification" while the portfolio company burns cash. By the time the "Strategy Phase" ends on Day 90, you've lost the most critical window for change.

Real value creation isn't about slides; it's about Operational Alpha. It’s about executing a plan that acknowledges a terrifying statistic: nearly 25% of deals now encounter unforeseen risks that weren't caught in diligence. If your 100-day plan is rigid, it breaks. If it’s purely financial, it misses the operational leverage points. You need a template that speaks fluent EBITDA and fluent operations.

The Operator’s 100-Day Template

Forget the Gantt chart. Effective 100-day plans are organized by Time-to-Value. We structure the first quarter into three distinct sprints, prioritizing levers that hit the P&L immediately.

Days 0-30: Triage & The "pricing" Quick Win

Your first month is not for "learning tours." It is for stopping the bleeding and securing the fastest possible EBITDA lift. Data shows that pricing optimization is the single most reliable lever, with a failure rate of only 4% and an average time-to-impact of 7.8 months—too slow if you wait. You must start Day 1.

• The Revenue Quality Audit: Don't just look at the bookings. Look at the profitability of the bookings. Segment customers by gross margin, not revenue. Identify the bottom 20% of customers who are consuming 50% of your support resources. Run a Revenue Quality Audit immediately to stop servicing unprofitable revenue.
• The Pricing Lift: Implement a CPI (Consumer Price Index) adjustment or a legacy contract catch-up. A 1% price increase drops ~6% to the bottom line. This is your funding for the rest of the transformation.
• Cash Triage: If the 13-week cash flow is shaky, install a "Cash Control Tower." No PO over $5k gets approved without CFO sign-off.

Days 31-60: Structural Correction & Tech Debt

Once you’ve stopped the bleeding, you must address the structural rot that diligence missed. This is usually hidden in the engineering and delivery orgs.

• The "Keep the Lights On" (KTLO) Analysis: If 70% of your engineering time is spent on maintenance and bug fixes, your roadmap is a lie. You aren't shipping features; you're treading water. You need to quantify this Technical Debt to understand your true velocity.
• Utilization Reset: For services businesses, utilization often drifts into the "Danger Zone" of sub-69%. Implement a strict time-tracking policy and cut non-billable "bench" time aggressively.
• Sales Governance: Install a weekly forecast call that actually holds reps accountable. If you have a 3x pipeline coverage myth, shatter it now. Focus on the 1x that is real.

Days 61-90: Acceleration & Talent Grading

By Month 3, you know who on the management team is a "War Time" leader and who is a "Peace Time" passenger. Now you make the changes.

• Topgrading the Exec Team: You cannot execute a 2026 value creation plan with a 2019 management team. If the VP of Sales can't explain their funnel math, they are out. If the CTO can't explain their AWS bill, they are out.
• Process Documentation: Tribal knowledge is an valuation killer. Begin documenting the core "Cash-to-Cash" cycle. This is the foundation for the eventual exit.

Governance: How to Prevent 'Drift'

The enemy of the 100-Day Plan is "Drift." The slide deck says one thing, but the daily standups focus on another. Strategy is what you say you'll do; culture is what you actually measure.

The Weekly Flash Report

You do not have time for monthly board packages that look backwards. You need a Weekly Flash Report. This is a single-page dashboard delivered every Friday at noon. It tracks:

• Liquidity: Cash on hand, weekly burn, collections.
• Sales Velocity: New pipeline created, deals slipped, forecast accuracy.
• Operational Health: Billable utilization, ticket backlog, critical outages.

If a metric is red for two weeks, you intervene. If it's red for four weeks, you change the person responsible.

The "Exit Readiness" Mindset

Why are we doing this? Because the secondary market is flooded with unsold assets. There is over $3 trillion in unsold private equity assets globally. To sell in this market, you cannot just be "growing." You must be clean. You need a data room that tells a story of systematic, repeatable growth, not founder-led heroics.

The 100-Day Plan is not an onboarding document. It is the blueprint for your eventual exit. If you treat it as a checkbox, you will be holding this asset for 7 years. If you treat it as an operational mandate, you build the velocity required to exit at a premium, even in a compressed market.