Wipfli Saves 20 Hours Per Deal with DealRoom

About the Company 

• Wipfli strives to create a positive impact on its clients, focusing on “improving key components of every successful organization” with over 88 years of experience.  
• Wipfli provides knowledgeable solutions with consulting services in industries including but not limited to, auditing and accounting, business valuations, cyber security, litigation support, organizational performance, and technology. 
• With over 3,200 associates, Wipfli works to bring integrated solutions with values rooted in integrity, caring, excellence, teamwork, and perseverance. 

‍Challenges: 

The Wipfli team struggled to track tasks cross-functionally, hindering visibility across teams. There was no standard project management tool that all departments used, creating a lack of visibility around deal tasks. Wipfli was tracking prospects in Excel and using ShareFile for task management, creating obstacles for finding certain documents, and giving little foresight for tasks coming down the line. One of the biggest challenges that Wipfli encountered was their need to control security tightly enough so different teams could see different items. If a certain team needed documentation in a folder with secured documents, it was a manual task of moving information so documents remained secure. Although needed for security, the manual tasks of moving documents were time-consuming and often resulted in duplicate requests. Doing multiple deals per year, a change needed to be made to streamline efficiency. 

• Struggles with cross-functional tracking between internal teams. 
• Tracking prospects in Excel
• Extra time spent tracking documents in Share File
• Duplicate requests and files sent due to lack of visibility
• Needed additional security settings for different teams 

"DealRoom's end-to-end M&A management that was extremely easy to use for our internal team. I didn’t have to spend a lot of time training. So, that’s one reason that I think everyone should be using DealRoom."
_{- Nicole Markowski}

Solution: 

After trying multiple different solutions, DealRoom appealed to the Wipfli team as the most user-friendly option with the select features they needed to run successful, efficient deals. Over the last three transactions Wipfli completed, not a single person from the incoming firm asked for training from the Wipfli team. Incoming team members were able to onboard with only the information on DealRoom’s website and YouTube channel. DealRoom’s flexible security options for different team members while also assuring that documents are getting to the right teams. DealRoom enabled Wipfli to have increased transparency around reporting and task management, streamlining the process to allow more time for proactive deal sourcing. 

• Replaced multiple tools with just one, DealRoom, resulting in a cleaner interface and fewer redundancies among all teams on the platform.
• Wipfli no longer had to manually match up tasks and documents in Excel.  With DealRoom they can link documents directly within task requests. 
• DealRoom’s 4-level permission security capabilities reduced duplicate documents. 
• DealRoom encouraged interactions with the incoming firm with one central place of truth.

Outcome: 

After using DealRoom on multiple deals, Wipfli recognizes the impact it has on streamlining deal processes from start to finish.  Key business benefits include:

• 20+ Hours Saved Time Savings: 3+ hours saved per week per team member, resulting in 20+ hours of diligence work saved per deal. Wipfli now has fewer meetings, fewer emails, and more time back to proactively source future deals. Dealroom prevented duplicate task requests with its internal collaboration tools.
• Streamlined Project Management: Communication across teams and project management has greatly improved, resulting in significant time savings. 
• More Efficient Deal Sourcing: More time is spent being proactive in deal sourcing, as they are no longer tracking down documents, repeating duplicate tasks, or losing track of tasks. Wipfli can sit down with internal business leaders to understand what they are looking for in a transaction and utilize that information to proactively source new deals effectively. The firm is now more strategic than opportunistic when sourcing deals. 
• Improved Visibility: Reporting on tasks and priorities has increased efficiency across the board, offering insights as to what team members are working on at all times. There is increased visibility among teams on tasks, priorities, and dependencies.‍
• Optimized Security: Streamlined document sharing among team members and departments with additional security settings for interdepartmental sharing with DealRoom’s 4-level permission security capabilities.