Higher-performing PE firms are more than twice as likely to use dedicated capabilities or portfolio-wide systems for commercial value creation. Simon-Kucher's 2026 Private Equity Value Creation Study shows a practical path from lightweight governance to deeper portfolio infrastructure, and why that operating maturity increasingly matters in LP fundraising.
Private equity firms have spent years getting better at identifying and executing commercial value creation. While there is still work to do, the ultimate goal is to make those wins repeatable across the portfolio. In our 2026 Private Equity Value Creation Study of 215 private equity executives, only 11% say institutionalizing commercial value creation across the firm is where they have improved most over the past five years, compared with 26% who point to portco specific execution after close.
The performance gap is already visible. Across the full sample, 56% of firms with higher-than-market performance describe their model as a dedicated commercial value creation capability or a portfolio-wide system. That number drops to 25% for low-MOIC firms. Leading teams are building common routines, playbooks, and resource-allocation mechanisms that make value creation less dependent on how each individual deal team or management team happens to operate.
There is no single operating model every sponsor needs to build on day one. A practical progression starts with a common board-level cadence, adds portfolio diagnostics to decide where deeper intervention is warranted, and ultimately develops dedicated internal capabilities for firms with enough scale and complexity to support them.
Start with a common board-level commercial cadence
The lowest-lift starting point is a standardized commercial and pricing discussion at the board level. 59% of respondents already use standard KPI or reporting templates across the portfolio, but only 30% use formal prompts in board materials. That gap suggests many firms have some common measurement in place without consistently turning it into the same focused management discussion across every asset.
A simple annual template can close that gap without creating a major new operating burden. It can ask each portfolio company to report a small set of common performance measures, review what its highest-priority commercial initiatives delivered against plan, and set the next two or three commercial must-wins with clear owners, expected value, and resource needs.
For pricing, that may include target versus realized price, cost inflation, a price-volume-mix waterfall, and a few multi-year trends. The same structure can be adapted for sales effectiveness, go-to-market, or other relevant commercial priorities.
The template should leave room for business-specific KPIs while standardizing the questions that matter across the portfolio. It also should not become the only time commercial performance is discussed. The annual checkpoint creates a common baseline and forces a deeper review, while regular board and management routines keep the agenda active throughout the year.
Use a portfolio scrub to decide where to go deeper
Once a firm has a consistent view of portfolio-company performance, the next question is where to invest scarce operating-team attention. In our 2026 findings, only 40% of respondents indicated that they use regular portfolio diagnostics. A portfolio scrub can help turn reporting foundations into a comparative decision tool by showing which assets have the largest commercial gaps, the weakest management alignment, and the clearest value creation upside.
A practical scrub can baseline each portco’s current performance and 12-month commercial agenda, benchmark maturity across pricing and commercial excellence, surface differences of opinion across leaders, and size the value associated with the most important gaps. The result is a portfolio map that helps the sponsor prioritize where internal specialists, outside support, capital, and management time can create the greatest return.
This is especially useful for firms that know commercial opportunity exists across the portfolio but cannot support every company with the same intensity. The scrub gives the operating team an evidence-based way to sequence support, identify common themes that can be solved once and reused, and avoid spreading resources evenly across very different needs.
Build a dedicated capability when scale warrants it
For firms with enough scale, the most mature model is a dedicated commercial value creation team or center of excellence that spans diligence through exit. Today, higher-performing firms invest more heavily in both ownership and codification: 46% have a dedicated internal capability versus 25% of lower-performing firms, while 59% use shared playbooks versus 29%.
The strongest version of this model does more than maintain a library of tools. It creates owners for the firm's commercial methods, keeps playbooks and KPI definitions current, supports deal teams during diligence, helps activate priorities after close, and connects companies to specialist expertise when needed.
It can also create stronger mechanisms for resource allocation across the portfolio. Only 24% of respondents report a dedicated value acceleration budget or resource pool, and 13% use formal stage gates or hurdle rates, indicating how these fully integrated portfolio systems can become true advantages in the market.
Playbooks become more powerful when somebody owns them, updates them, and can mobilize resources around them. A dedicated capability also creates continuity across the ownership lifecycle, so lessons from one asset can inform diligence on the next and portfolio companies do not have to recreate the same commercial operating practices independently.
Make the operating model visible to LPs
The case for building these systems extends beyond portfolio execution:
Commercial value creation maturity has become an important part of the fundraising story: 65% of respondents say it is important or very important in LP diligence and fundraising discussions.
LPs want evidence that value creation is both proven and repeatable: 62% look for realized impact and quantified outcomes, while 56% assess the operating-team model or operating-partner bench.
That changes what a credible fundraising story needs to show. Board routines create comparable evidence across assets. Portfolio scrubs demonstrate that the firm can diagnose and prioritize opportunity systematically. A dedicated capability shows how expertise is organized and deployed. The operating model becomes credible when sponsors can connect those mechanisms to realized outcomes and show LPs that commercial value creation can be repeated across funds, sectors, and ownership cycles.
Build the capability you can sustain
Not every sponsor needs the same level of investment, but every sponsor can move toward a more repeatable model. A standardized board cadence creates focus with relatively little infrastructure. Portfolio scrubs add a deeper fact base for prioritization. Dedicated commercial value creation teams and centers of excellence make sense when the portfolio is large enough to benefit from persistent specialist capability, shared methods, and cross-portfolio resource allocation.
The common thread is repeatability. Higher-performing firms are already more likely to have portfolio-wide systems in place, while LPs increasingly expect evidence that value creation is supported by a credible operating model. The question for sponsors is therefore where their current model sits on that maturity curve and what they should build next.
To help answer that question, Simon-Kucher has developed a Commercial Value Creation Maturity Scorecard that assesses how systematically a PE firm identifies, executes, and scales commercial value creation across its portfolio.
The assessment covers diligence and underwriting, value creation execution, and the firm-level operating model, including governance, standardized KPIs, dedicated capabilities, and resource allocation. Firms can use the results to benchmark their current maturity against leading practice, identify relative strengths and gaps, and prioritize where greater institutionalization can have the most impact.
See how your firm compares. Complete Simon-Kucher’s 5-7 minute Commercial Value Creation Maturity Scorecard to benchmark your firm’s operating model and identify where you are strongest and where further investment may be warranted. Participants receive a customized summary of their results, with responses kept confidential.
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Explore the full findings, benchmarks and implications from Simon-Kucher’s 2026 Private Equity Value Creation Study here.
