Private Equity Funds Database Research Tips
Included within most high end Private Equity Directory resources, are thousands of details included about the firms and key personnel.
While these directories are invaluable, navigating within in them can be difficult when trying to research within the resource.
This article seeks to alleviate some of these problems and offer potential solutions and time saving techniques.
For this article, I will describe some problem solving and time saving techniques to employ within a Microsoft Excel based PE firm listing resource.
Research: Within most excel based resources are over 15,000 to 20,000 individual cells of data.
Researching within each of these directories is often overwhelming unless you have specific search criteria in mind.
Sorting: This is a very valuable and helpful tool within the Microsoft Excel program which will allow you to rearrange the information which is contained within the directory.
For example, if you wanted to arrange the PE firms within the resource by location this would be impossible without this function.
However, it only takes four easy clicks to rearrange the 20,000 cells within the resource.
Begin by clicking the column you would like sort; in this example we are using the location.
With the location highlighted, next click the data tab.
In the middle of the data tab is an icon which shows AZ or ZA with corresponding arrows.
By clicking on either one of these options, you are able to sort the locations in alphabetical order or in reverse order.
Important: Make absolutely sure that you choose the option "expand to entire selection" when prompted.
If you do not choose this option the excel program will then only sort the data in that column only instead of sorting the entire information for each of the PE firm listings.
In conclusion, the importance of this technique is that it can be used in a variety of different ways to allow you to get the most out of the directory resource.
While these directories are invaluable, navigating within in them can be difficult when trying to research within the resource.
This article seeks to alleviate some of these problems and offer potential solutions and time saving techniques.
For this article, I will describe some problem solving and time saving techniques to employ within a Microsoft Excel based PE firm listing resource.
Research: Within most excel based resources are over 15,000 to 20,000 individual cells of data.
Researching within each of these directories is often overwhelming unless you have specific search criteria in mind.
Sorting: This is a very valuable and helpful tool within the Microsoft Excel program which will allow you to rearrange the information which is contained within the directory.
For example, if you wanted to arrange the PE firms within the resource by location this would be impossible without this function.
However, it only takes four easy clicks to rearrange the 20,000 cells within the resource.
Begin by clicking the column you would like sort; in this example we are using the location.
With the location highlighted, next click the data tab.
In the middle of the data tab is an icon which shows AZ or ZA with corresponding arrows.
By clicking on either one of these options, you are able to sort the locations in alphabetical order or in reverse order.
Important: Make absolutely sure that you choose the option "expand to entire selection" when prompted.
If you do not choose this option the excel program will then only sort the data in that column only instead of sorting the entire information for each of the PE firm listings.
In conclusion, the importance of this technique is that it can be used in a variety of different ways to allow you to get the most out of the directory resource.
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