The Green Recruitment Company: Technology Diligence Built Around the Growth Plan
The Brief
Most technology diligence briefs share a common core, and this one was no different. An investor wants to know whether technology poses any red-flag risks to the investment case, where it could help create value faster, and where under-investment could hold growth back. That means understanding how scalable the systems are, how secure and resilient they are, and how quickly the business could recover if something went wrong. KCP was particularly interested in business systems, operational capability and the opportunities to improve performance after investment.
The wider market shaped how we approached the work. UK recruitment has had a difficult few years. The KPMG and REC Report on Jobs recorded falling permanent placements every month from late 2022 until a marginal rise in September 2026, while temporary billings grew at their fastest rate since April 2023 as employers favoured flexibility.
Green economy recruiters also face a distinctive talent picture. The UK Government’s Clean Energy Jobs Plan expects the clean energy workforce to roughly double, from around 440,000 jobs in 2023 to 860,000 by 2030, and identifies 31 priority occupations where demand is high and supply is constrained. Growth in that market depends on finding scarce candidates quickly, and increasingly on how well a firm uses its data and AI to do it. Those questions stayed with us throughout the assessment.
The Solution
Starting with the growth plan, not the server room
The DMA begins where much technology diligence never goes: with the business and its value creation plan. Before we look at a single system, we sit down with the management team to understand where they believe growth will come from and where they are placing their biggest bets.
At TGRC, that kickoff brought together the group CEO, CFO and COO, operational leaders from across the group’s recruitment businesses, the head of client services, the lead for internal hiring and Stephen Redmond, Group CMO, who holds overall accountability for the technology stack. These were the people who run the business day to day, not only the people who know about technology.
Working through the online DMA together on screen, the team covered our seven business domains: strategy, sales, customer, people, operations, management and technology. In each one they chose the growth initiatives that mattered to them, then used simple sliders to rate how much that domain would contribute to the three and five year EBITDA growth plan, and how far that growth depends on technology. The tool weights the planned EBITDA growth across the domains, giving us a quantified view of which areas matter most. Every recommendation we make is later prioritised against that picture, so the roadmap follows the value at stake.
The team then scored their current and target maturity in each domain across process, technology, and data and AI. We are not trying to push a business to five out of five everywhere. The aim is a pragmatic target that fits its stage of growth, and the scoring shows us where process needs sharpening before any new system will help.
The response in the room was immediate.
| “Very useful, thank you.”
Nic Yates, COO, The Green Recruitment Company |
Looking back on the process two months later, Stephen Redmond said the kickoff had stayed with the team.
| “People enjoyed the visualisation of the initial onboarding process with the sliders and being able to produce outputs. I think that was very, very positively received by the team.”
Stephen Redmond, Group CMO, The Green Recruitment Company |
Why this matters in the lower and mid-market
In the lower and mid-market, technology diligence is often a technical audit: an infrastructure and security checklist that tells an investor what is wrong without saying what matters. By anchoring the assessment to management’s own growth plan and quantifying it against EBITDA, the DMA shows investors which technology risks and opportunities could move the value creation plan, and in what order to tackle them.
The maturity scores also give non-technical boards a shared language. Knowing you are a two out of five against a target of three is easier to act on than a long list of technical observations, and it gives the investor a baseline to measure progress against after the deal.
AI-powered, not AI-driven
AI plays a real part in the DMA, and we are clear about what that part is. We use it to speed up research, analyse data room evidence, test hypotheses and assemble the report. It does not make the judgements. Every observation and recommendation is reviewed, challenged and tailored by an experienced consultant before it reaches a client.
What AI changes is where our time goes. The time that used to be spent on writing, formatting and editing the final deliverable, now instead goes into conducting more in depth analysis and research and reaching more powerful conclusions. Investors and management teams get more insight for the same investment. And our diligence engine ensures full traceability from recommendations, through to source documentation or interviews.
No surprises, working as partners
After the kickoff, we reviewed the evidence in the data room and interviewed stakeholders across the group. TGRC answered a detailed information request of close to 300 questions with evidence prepared in advance, which meant we arrived at every interview already informed and could spend the time on the questions that mattered.
Before anything went to KCP, we held a playback session with the management team to walk through our emerging observations and shape the roadmap together. Nothing in the final report was a surprise. Our aim is always a report the business recognises and owns rather than one that sits on a shelf, so the recommendations were built with the people who would deliver them, not handed to them.
| “Normally in the DD process you talk to lawyers, and lawyers don’t really have an appreciation of the work you’re doing. The fact that you guys are specialists was a huge boon in the process. It was intellectually stimulating.”
Stephen Redmond, Group CMO, The Green Recruitment Company |
The Result
The DMA provided KCP and TGRC with a clear picture of the organisation’s current maturity, key constraints and future opportunities.
Most importantly, it enabled conversations that went beyond technology and focused on the wider business impact of existing decisions and behaviours.
Fluid presented a targeted set of initiatives designed to improve efficiency, support scalability and strengthen future growth, each prioritised against the growth plan the management team had set out at the start.
The recommendations were well received by both the management team and KCP. The investor gained confidence in its understanding of the business and the opportunities available post-acquisition, while TGRC came away with a practical roadmap for improvement.
| “I was very happy with the report. I thought the report was very fair. I think it focused on the right things and it presented a range of options. It was very, very easy to read.”
Stephen Redmond, Group CMO, The Green Recruitment Company |
Following the engagement, KCP proceeded with its investment in the business and subsequently engaged Fluid to undertake a further due diligence assignment.
The project demonstrated the value of combining technology expertise, business understanding and AI-powered assessment. By looking beyond the technology to the business decisions and behaviours around it, Fluid provided deeper insight, better investment intelligence and clearer opportunities for value creation.
Thinking about technology due diligence ahead of an investment decision? Get in touch to find out how Fluid’s Digital Maturity Assessment can uncover the risks and opportunities that matter most to your value creation plan.
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