It is a short sharp piece of work, that doesn’t not get in the way of the integration or the business. It reduces your risk during integration and increases probability of success. Why wouldn’t you do one. You should have an internal review or health check, but could use external experts.
We give you a report covering the nine critical areas of integration. You could do one now for your last deal to pre-pair for your next, or at any time during a deal to see how your doing.
A review process should be set up for each deal. A fresh pair of eyes will always have a better chance of spotting the gaps. This process will be particularly useful if the deal manager has people on the project that have not completed many deals before end to end or where resource on the project might be considered tight, often things fall through the gaps, and a holistic review is useful.
The overarching review is also useful if there is a possibility of high interdependencies or poor communication due to project people being of different background, experience, levels, based in different divisions, countries, locations.
We all know that a review process is a great idea, even if we have a formal structure, governance and tracking process. The real questions are: How many review “hot spots” should we have give the size and complexity of a deal and what should they include?
Deals should be reviewed well in advance of due diligence, along side the Due Diligence process, just before the deal and then just after as we suddenly know a lot more information, then every two months for the next 2-3 years . Before each stage of the deal a review should take place to feed good information into that decision to move on. If we are looking closely around the deal date (before and after) fuller reviews, looking at each function for 2-5 days should take place
For small deals an extra pair of expert eyes to help spot issues and then potentially support gaps. We often find these reviews are a great way to help people who could use extra M&A and PMI knowledge. We can provide coaching support
A review can be done at any time, clearly bringing in experts and their knowledge and experience into the deal early will give the possibility for an improved deal. So before negotiation is perfect. However there are a number of pinch points through the deal process and so health checks are also done before Day 1, around the 2-3 month mark, before the large synergies are due to be delivered and clearly after the deal has been completed.
We can do any level you want from shallow to deep dive
We can do a desk top review – using all your paperwork – just share it with us, it can be done remotely. The next level of review is to interview those who are involved with the integration directly (100% integration resource). The best health check will then also interview those from the business who have been part of the integration team and those who have not.
See which activities are driving the most value in GBP, check that resourcing is appropriately spread in line with delivery value. Will the programme team get to “overwhelm state” what additional internal resource will the programme need, when and where. Monitor momentum over the next 12-18 months. We make suggestions and recommendations from the review where we could improve, deliver more or deliver better.
There are a number of areas we can review:
Deal model and valuation, governance, functional plans, integration management office, growth, efficiencies, integration strategy, synergies, communications and Day 1
Review focus on essential deliverables, communication with all stakeholders and interim processes that ensure “business as usual”. Does resource have the experience of integrations and clear detailed plans.
Review:
Review costs and overlap, ensure a good business model is put in place for delivery. The greater the efficiencies and faster they are delivered the more profit.
Each of the functional and business workstreams needs to be set up, given checklist, planned, aided and tracked. Full 100 Day plans set up. Review high level plans.
The IMO will need to ensure that all of the integration teams have adequate resource, skills and cultural mix with the correct overall structure to provide risk management and governance for all of the integration projects.
Once we have a clear detailed understanding of current ways of working for the businesses and details of the end point, the IMO can ensure that there is a sound business case and that planning and timing will deliver it. Interim scenarios for Day 1, Day 90 and Day 180 can be prepared and road maps, milestones and potential roadblocks to delivery designed/assessed. How will we run the company?
Review strategy of company & deal. How far should we integrate each:
What is the correct level of integration, define integration goals:
Remain separate:
The structure of the integration needs to be agreed and put in place at the start, adequately resourced and maintained. Decisions need to be made in a timely manner. People need to know who to turn to when facing issues they cannot resolve.
Without good guidance, direction and decision making the planning will not go well and delivery will be poor and slow.
Set up reporting
Review planned growth in the deal business case or Discounted Cash Flow and compare with integration plans and then the delivery of those plans. How it will grow?
Synergies are identified, high level values developed and allocated to streams (function, divisions, businesses and countries).
Streams then prepare individual Business Cases for review and approval to ensure they are challenging, achievable, and deliver the synergies needed.
Therefore, a robust and accurate tracking and reporting process (including a reconciliation to business performance reporting) is implemented to ensure that delivery is kept on track.
With plans made in each area, the communications plans need to be created. Communication channels to all stakeholders developed checked and activated.
Communication guidelines detailing what, where, when, who and how as well as feedback process.
Understanding the deal rational, model, assumption and valuation is key to understanding if the deal is successful. Tracking the underlying assumptions across the integration planning and delivery to ensure the deal delivers what was wanted. Where there are gaps or changes, this can be valuable learning for future deals.