Earlier this year, tech focused private equity firm Silver Lake completed its acquisition of ServiceMax. Just three years prior, the company was sold to GE Digital in a deal worth $915 million. That transaction marked GE’s larger focus on the high growth industrial Internet of Things space. It seems the massive opportunity in field services converging with IoT was just too irresistible that Silver Lake pounced on GE’s asset looking to execute on a bold agenda.
On the close of the acquisition, Kenneth Hao, Managing Partner and Managing Director of Silver Lake, commented, "Silver Lake is excited to partner with ServiceMax to help accelerate its growth plans by driving further investments in product innovation and expanding its go-to-market channels. The company is well-positioned for continued leadership in the field service management and asset service management markets during this next chapter of development."
It didn’t take long before the PE firm installed their own CEO. Then CEO Scott Berg was replaced by Neil Barua in April of 2019. Neil is a known executive in the tech world and in particular with Silver Lake. He has twice been an operating partner with the firm, in 2014 and 2018, and in between those years, ran one of their portfolio companies, IPC Systems, which he led to a successful exit worth $1.2 billion.
In just two months at the helm, Neil was quick to announce the great strides made at ServiceMax. Recently, the company revealed it had reached 200 million assets under management.
Amit Jain, the company’s Senior Vice President of Product, states "The more sophisticated the equipment, the more service planners, dispatchers, and technicians depend on accurate data for each piece of serviced equipment," and added, "With ServiceMax, service organizations have the ability to capture and update accurate equipment as maintained data. This asset visibility is not available in other enterprise applications and is critical to digital service transformation."
The company has raving fans within the large enterprise community who rely on its software solutions to ensure an efficiently run field services operation.
"Field Services are at the core of our strategy and mastering our installed base data is a key enabler to execute," said Daniel Philippe, Vice President of Global Field Service Operations at Schneider Electric. "Our customers expect us to provide the best services and support. By leveraging ServiceMax as a system of record for the installed base, we can better understand our business, the market dynamics, where the installed base is, and deliver excellent, consistent service across the globe."
While it’s still a bit early to tell what the ultimate return outcome will be on Silver Lake’s investment, the odds are stacked in their favor with a proven executive at the helm and a massive market to address.
