Creating a Solid M&A Integration Plan: Key Checklist for Due Diligence

Achieving a successful business transition requires carefully navigating its key drivers from your end. As you brace up for a successful merger or acquisition, preparing for your next move effectively is crucial. Successful players seamlessly align their personal and business goals to succeed in these endeavors.

If your transition plan involves a merger or acquisition, establishing a well-defined M&A strategy turns out to be imperative.

A merger or acquisition process involves numerous moving parts like structuring, negotiating, and managing various details and stakeholders. So, it’s crucial to foster accountability across all the critical departments, involving the respective leaders. Steering clear of common pitfalls significantly increases the likelihood of successful transaction closure. Forward-thinking organizations count on experts for professional mergers & acquisitions advisory services and benefit from their assistance in due diligence.

To ensure a seamless M&A integration and ensure leadership engagement at all levels, we have recommended a checklist to you. This checklist outlines the key steps to come up with a comprehensive plan for business integration.

 Formulating the Right Strategy for Integration

To ensure that every party focuses on their goals and timeframes, set well-defined strategies to close on schedule. With professional guidance, businesses should work on these strategies.

1. Financial Model and Synergy Business Case

• Develop a valuation model for synergy estimates and purchase price
• establish your target and stretch the corresponding goals for revenue and cost synergies
• Find out one-time investments like severance payouts to your executives, new facilities involving lower operational costs, or repair equipment expenses
• For debt and equity, determine relevant financing options

2. Legal and tax Infrastructure

• Determine the tax structure that would suit your case efficiently
• Decide whether or not you need to consolidate or add legal entities
• Finalize working capital, merger agreements, and financing

3. Internal and External Communications

• Come up with detailed scripts, new communication channels, and event timelines
• Help your teams dealing with customers to respond to their queries and communicate consistently

Work on Your Operations

Brace up for the integration with a robust operational mechanism to minimize disruption of your business. The environment should motivate your employees and make them feel engaged. This would enhance your customer experience too.

1.  Back-Office

• Integrate mobile handsets, networks, and emails to ensure effective communication from the first day
• Make sure to pay your employees on time, besides transferring the necessary benefits to them

2.  Changes in Personnel

• Determine the personnel who you want to retain for the transaction and the ones who would stay or exit at close
• Also, work on your onboarding strategy and craft a remarkable employee experience

3.  Customer Experience

• For each client tier, establish the outreach program for Day One. This can be in the form of a phone call, meeting in person, or e-communication
• Come up with your unique value proposition and be ready with your operations to deliver to your clients

Value Creation

As your business starts earning revenue, it creates value, which is a primary goal. The value creation strategy has to be determined before closing. It continues to be a priority for the initial couple of years.

1.  Operating Model

• The operational structure needs changes to enable capabilities and gain a competitive advantage
• To enhance profitability, align the business cost structure

2.  Go To Market Preparation

Arrange your metrics on a dashboard to grow your market share, revenue, and customer base

Establish a monthly strategy that would help you review specific data about the valuation model to ensure that you actually realize the metrics without assuming the returns

3.  Cost Synergy

• Consider updating your annual operational budget after reducing expenses and tracking costs
• Configure performance payouts and make sure that the leaders remain accountable

At the IMC Group, we extensively support global businesses with our due diligence services. Experience a breezy M&A process with professional backing from our end.