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Most AI initiatives in private equity portfolios never translate into EBITDA uplift. This article explains why value gets lost, how ROI fog forms, and what operating partners consistently underestimate.

Private equity has poured billions into MSP roll-ups over the last decade. The thesis is familiar: acquire strong regional operators, standardise operations, unlock scale, and expand margins. On paper, it works. In reality, most MSP platforms hit an invisible wall somewhere between acquisition #2 and #4.

Across private equity portfolios, the same conversation repeats itself. An AI pilot shows promise. A proof of concept is funded. Early results look encouraging. Then time passes.

Digital transformation is often painted as the preserve of global giants with billion-pound budgets. For small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), the phrase can sound intimidating—expensive consultants, endless software licences, and risky projects that never pay back.

Corporates love to talk about intellectual property as if it’s a crown jewel. Executives boast about “owning everything we build.” Lawyers write policies to lock up every line of code. Boards clutch patents like dragons sitting on gold. Here’s the brutal truth: owning 100% of nothing is worth less than owning 50% of something that ships, scales, and sells.

Most digital transformation projects fail not because the strategy is wrong, but because the execution never gets off the ground. Plans gather dust, budgets stretch thin, and employees lose faith. The solution isn’t more theory—it’s prototyping.

Every business has them: legacy systems. They’re the platforms that keep the lights on—finance systems from the 1990s, clunky CRMs, on-prem servers with critical data. They’re reliable, familiar, and often mission-critical. But they’re also the biggest roadblocks to digital transformation.

Wearables were once a novelty — step counters on your wrist, calorie trackers in your pocket. Today, they’ve become mainstream. Millions of employees use devices that monitor heart rate, sleep, stress, and even oxygen levels. But here’s the problem: **most corporate wellness programmes stop at counting steps.**

Across boardrooms, a familiar chant echoes: *“We need an innovation team.”* It sounds progressive. It signals ambition. It reassures investors that you’re “serious” about the future. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: for mid-market companies, 'building an internal R&D team is often innovation theatre'. It looks good in a press release, but behind the scenes it’s slow, expensive, and rarely produces transformative results.