Mergers and acquisitions are complex. They can take your company to the next level, however, what we know about numbers of failed deals demands a sound M&A strategy and an enlightened integration plan. This will help you stay on the road to a successful result.
The team framework, and in particular how it is structured for the workstreams of functional is influenced by a variety of factors like the type of company and organizational structure, size of lean portfolio management acquisition, direction and purpose of this acquisition (i.e. integration of products, new products strategic uplift, synergies) as well as other factors. There are usually between six and twelve workstreams since some of them can be combined by subteams (i.e. Treasury could be a subteam within Finance) or they may not apply. The Thentegration Framework Define process is focused on the specific deal in order to efficiently design the structure of the team.
Below are some typical functional workstreams, with descriptions that are high-level However, keep in mind that it is crucial to identify what workstreams your company needs and the best way to structure them.
Find out more about how to conduct an effective M&A by visiting the M&A Management Toolkit and Playbook page.
TYPICAL M&A WORKSTREAMS
Product Strategy
The Product Strategy functional workstream defines an overall product direction for the organization in which it will help achieve merger & acquisition services leadership in the industry. Its responsibilities include:
- The overall direction of the product and establishing the high-level roadmap for the product
- Determining the requirements for functionality and feature and the desired timeframe for implementation to achieve objectives (i.e. market leadership in 12 months)
- Identifying how the release of the target affect the acquirer’s future plans and capabilities
- The development of plans to offer a combination of products
- The definition of strategies for our clients with a history and those being implemented
- Controlling the product’s message in the marketplace
Product Technology & Operations
Its Technology & Operations functional workstream creates a future-oriented Technology and Operations organization that will be able to meet the requirements for development according to the Product Strategy Workstream and the customer delivery requirements as outlined in the Product Strategy and Sales Workstreams. Furthermore, they have to keep in place the key talent needed to protect intellectual capital. They are responsible for:
- Establishing suggested organizational strategies and structures to be used by Client Services, Customer Service and Product Development organizations; Identifying the most important resources required to help support current product lines (including Client Services, Customer Service and Product Development organizations)
- Secure existing acquisition and target software documentation
- Documentation for software when problems are discovered
- Designing a high-level product development plan that is based on the Product Strategy Workstream team’s defined functions and features; addressing the gaps in expectations, as needed
- Examining potential capabilities within the development organization to realize the goals of the product plan
Identifying the key resources within that Customer Services organization to execute the Client Contact Plan
Sales
The functional workstream for Sales works together with the Workstream for Client Retention (can be combined into a single team) to minimize the risk of defections from prospect and client and creates an elite sales organization applying the best methods of both the acquirer and the customer. The responsibilities include:
- Making sure that contract and approval processes are followed and applied to both the organizations
- Implementing best practices by identifying the most effective practices. an established sales management procedure
- Examining the pipeline for target to ensure that it is consistent with the standards of the acquirer and, if needed suggest steps to ensure that there is a reconciliation between the two
- Integration of the acquirer and target teams of sales in line with the desired structure of management
- Implementing the prospect and client contact strategy developed in the Workstream on Client Retention
- In identifying and reducing the risk of defection for important prospects
- Determining the cause of a defection that is less than important sales staff
- Making cross-selling strategies for complementary products
Client Retention
(Can be integrated (Coupled with Sales Workstream)
This Client Retention functional workstream develops an overall strategy to mitigate the chance of prospect abandonment. The responsibilities include:
- The process of analyzing a segmentation of the target company’s clients and prospects. Prioritizing the most “growable” and most valuable clients and prospects (Tiers 1 3)
- The process of creating a contact plan for each prospect and customer segmentation. With key messages for each segment, and determining the the communication medium. As well as frequency (e.g. Tier 1 is either a phone call or a personal visit. Whereas Tier 3 might be first notified via email.)
- Setting retention goals for every client segment. And prospect (e.g. 100 percent retention for all prospects in Tier 1 Prospects. That have more than 50% chance of closing the sale, etc.)
- Identifying the most important sources (e.g. Customer Service and Customer Service) based on segmentation analysis (which includes the assigned resources) and distributing information to the Sales as well as Product Technology & Operations teams when appropriate.
- Recognizing overlapping clients and prospects and determining which buyers and/or targets is the best person to make the initial contact.
- Participating members of the Sales Workstream team and Customer Support staff in the review of the plan for contact to get their input to the process.
- The sales meeting should be planned with all sales representatives to set out the strategic goals
- The development of an early Warning System to detect the likelihood of defection of clients
Making monitoring reports related to Client Contact Plan execution and beginning to report to the executive management