Long gone are the days when a handshake and abacus were the preferred tools of deal making.
In today’s go-go business environment, mergers and acquisitions have become a necessary recipe in helping like enterprises compete for, or solidify, market share in their vertical. However, the very prospect of completing the myriad details in achieving corporate combinations is enough to send executive bean counters running for the hills.
That’s because, during M&A consolidations, people, processes, and systems are all being re-evaluated. Getting an eagle-eyed view of the process seemingly requires more visibility than one tool – or set of tools – can facilitate. Typical tasks to be completed in the run-up to an M&A include:
- Market Analysis – Identifying and setting definitions for the companies in the target market, as well as screening the market;
- Establishing Targets – Prioritizing and assigning deals, executing confidentiality agreements, submitting indication of interest documents, organizing management meetings;
- Documentation and Valuation – Recording targets, conducting a SWOT analysis of the deal, creating the letter of intent;
- Due Diligence – Negotiating terms, examination of books;
- Negotiation – Setting valuation, purchase price, deal structure and purchase agreement.
It’s little wonder that, according to the Harvard Business Review, between 70 and 90 percent of intended M&A deals never reach their target.
However, savvy companies have a new ally in the battle against the M&A fear factor. We’ve shared in previous blogs about the global runaway success of the Office 365 suite, and how the synergy between its tools is fostering a new sense of efficiency at enterprises of all sizes.
Enter Dynamics 365 – yet another way that Microsoft has unlocked the secret to cross-platform collaboration. Dynamics 365 – in the typical Microsoft fashion – has simplified the M&A process to the point that many of the complex tasks above have been automated, consolidated or marginalized to a mere formality. It’s ability to bridge the universe of Office 365 products means that you can easily collect, process and operationalize the tasks of crunching numbers and analytics, circulating mission-critical data and documents, and establishing the foundational structure for the combined entity going forward.
Here are just five reasons why Dynamics 365 is the ideal tool for M&A management:
- Deal Pipeline Management – Dynamics 365 makes it easy to configure and manage the stages of the deal. You can easily set up key fields and checklist items as part of each stage, and a visual indicator at the top of the forms quickly shows users where they are in the acquisition process – stages like investigation, short list, engagement & discussion, proposal, negotiation and close.
- Company Insights and Interactions – Dynamics 365 allows you to gather insights and interactions from both companies in the M&A transaction, and to store them in a secure environment that also assures universal access on demand. Even emails, phone calls and tasks are included in the information management capabilities of Dynamics 365.
- Shared Document Libraries – Again, the strong suit of Dynamics 365 is its ability to capture and provide a universal access point to a host of document libraries related to the M&A transaction.
- Native Integrations – Because of Dynamics 365’s native integrations with Outlook and SharePoint, emails, posts and other communications related to the M&A process can automatically be captured and catalogued.
- Mobile Access – No longer do you need a desktop or laptop to check in on the M&A process – Dynamics 365, like the rest of the Office 365 suite, is available through mobile app, allowing for full featured access to your mission-critical data.
How does your enterprise manage its M&A deal flow?
