Operational Due Diligence Question Bank

What proportion of revenue is contracted, recurring or repeat, and what is the weighted average remaining contract length?

How much of last year's growth came from volume, price, mix and acquisition respectively?

What share of revenue and of gross profit sits with the top five and top ten customers, and how has that moved over three years?

Which customer relationships depend on a named individual rather than on the business?

When did you last take a price increase, what was the realised versus list increase, and what churn followed?

Who has authority to discount, and what is the distribution of realised discounts by salesperson?

What is gross margin by product, channel and customer, and which of those are loss-making fully costed?

What is the conversion rate by pipeline stage, and how has it moved?

How much of the forecast pipeline has been in the same stage for more than 90 days?

What is gross and net revenue retention, calculated consistently, for each of the last three years?

What are the top three stated reasons for customer loss, and who owns win-back?

What is revenue per salesperson, and what is the spread between the best and median performer?

How long does a new salesperson take to reach full productivity, and what proportion leave before they do?

What share of the addressable market do you hold, and how is the addressable market defined?

Who has taken share from you in the last two years, and on what basis did they win?

What does it cost to acquire a customer by channel, and what is the payback period?

Which growth initiatives in the current plan have been tried before, and what happened?

What proportion of the cost base is genuinely variable within twelve months?

Which three cost lines have grown faster than revenue over three years, and why?

What proportion of external spend is under contract, competitively tendered in the last three years, or on evergreen renewal?

Who owns supplier negotiation, and what savings were delivered and verified in the P&L last year?

What is the output per FTE in the core operating process, and how does it vary by site or team?

What is the cost of rework, scrap, credit notes or repeat visits as a percentage of revenue?

What is current utilisation of the constraining resource, and what happens to it under the growth plan?

What capital expenditure is required to deliver the plan, and how much of it is maintenance versus growth?

What are debtor days, creditor days and stock turn, and how do they move across the year?

What proportion of the debtor book is over 90 days, and what is the provisioning policy?

Which core processes are documented, and when were they last reviewed against what actually happens?

How many manual handoffs exist between order and cash, and where do they fail most often?

What is the cost and utilisation of each site or facility, and what are the lease break dates?

Which activities are outsourced, what do they cost fully loaded, and when were they last market-tested?

What are your service levels against customer expectation, and how is that measured?

What is the incident and near-miss trend, and what has changed as a result?

What single points of failure exist in operations — a site, a machine, a supplier, a person?

What are the core systems of record, how old are they, and which are still supported by the vendor?

How many systems hold customer data, and what is the master?

Which integrations are bespoke, and who maintains them?

What is on the technology roadmap that is deferred maintenance rather than new capability?

How many customisations exist in the ERP or core platform, and do they block upgrades?

What is total technology spend as a percentage of revenue, split run versus change?

What software licences are in place, how many are actually used, and when do they renew?

When was the last penetration test and what remains unremediated?

What is the backup and recovery position, and when was recovery last actually tested?

Have there been any security incidents or data breaches in the last three years, reported or otherwise?

What is unplanned system downtime over 24 months and what did it cost?

How many people can support each critical system, and what happens if the main one leaves?

Is technology led by someone with a seat at the executive table, and what do they own?

Which vendors are critical, what are the exit terms, and how long would replacement take?

What proportion of customer transactions are digital end to end, without manual intervention?

What technology projects were planned in the last two years, and which delivered on time and to budget?

What software is in use that IT does not know about?

If the board asks for revenue by customer for last month, how many people touch the number before it is presented, and how long does it take?

Where do the board pack numbers come from, and can they be reproduced from source systems without manual adjustment?

What is the duplicate rate in the customer master, and who owns data quality?

How complete are the fields the plan depends on — margin by customer, service dates, asset records?

How long after month end are management accounts available, and how often are they restated?

What operational KPIs are reviewed weekly, and by whom?

What questions can the business currently not answer that it would like to?

Who builds reports, and is that their job?

Is there a data warehouse or equivalent, and what percentage of reporting runs through it?

Where is AI in use today, who approved it, and what data does it touch?

What is the stated AI plan, and does the underlying data exist to support it?

If a customer or LP asked how you govern AI use, what would you send them?

What personal data do you hold, on what lawful basis, and when was the last data audit?

Have any subject access requests or complaints been received, and how were they handled?

What data does the business hold that a customer or third party would pay for?

How do you measure whether an initiative delivered the EBITDA it promised?

Which roles have no credible successor, internal or identified externally?

How much of the management team has operated a business of the size the plan requires?

Which decisions still require the founder or CEO personally?

What is voluntary turnover overall and in the top two management layers, over three years?

Who has left in the last eighteen months that you wish had stayed, and why did they go?

How is the management team incentivised, and does it align with the value creation plan or with revenue?

What proportion of the bonus pool paid out last year, and against what targets?

Who in the management team would deliver the value creation plan, and what would they stop doing?

Which capabilities does the plan require that the business does not currently have?

What are the hard-to-fill roles, what is time to hire, and what does vacancy cost?

What is the absence rate and how does it compare across sites?

What does the business measure about engagement, and what did it do with the last set of results?

What employment claims, disputes or grievances are live or have settled in three years?

What is the position on contractor and self-employed status, and has it been reviewed?

How do salaries compare to market, and what would it cost to close any gap?

What pension arrangements are in place, and is there any defined benefit exposure?

How much change has this workforce absorbed in the last two years, and how did it go?

Is every initiative in the value creation plan sized in £ EBITDA, with a named owner and an agreed baseline?

How are initiative benefits calculated, and who challenged the assumptions?

Of the EBITDA improvement planned last year, what proportion was actually banked and visible in the P&L?

Which initiatives from last year's plan were quietly dropped, and who decided?

Who delivers the plan — a dedicated team, or people doing it on top of their day job?

How many initiatives are live simultaneously, and how many are genuinely resourced?

How often is initiative-level £ impact reviewed, as opposed to RAG status?

Who has authority to stop an initiative, and when was that last exercised?

What is the escalation route when an initiative slips, and what is the typical time to decision?

In what order will the initiatives be delivered, and what are the dependencies?

Which initiatives must start in the first ninety days for the plan to land at all?

How does a delivered benefit find its way into the budget?

What is on the risk register that would stop the plan, and who owns each item?

How will the organisation be told about the plan, and what is expected to be different for them?

Does a PMO exist, what does it cost, and does it report status or manage delivery?

What would need to be true operationally for this business to be sold in thirty-six months, and who owns getting there?