Friday, June 03, 2005
Making Acquisitions Work
I've had the mixed pleasure of making a few acquisitions in my time. Some worked, some didn't. The ones that didn't work, didn't work very well.
This article by Kenneth W. Freeman , from the continually excellent Strategy+Business, lays out three strategic principles of making an acquisition:
Don’t do the deal for the deal’s sake.
Never make more deals than your company can fully digest or integrate at one time.
And be certain that you can create shareholder value from the acquisition within the first year.
and four operating principles after the acquisition:
Serve all customers without disruption.
Treat every employee with fairness, dignity, and respect.
Move with deliberate speed.
Learn from each other.
Key grab: Remember, synergies are realized only once, whereas satisfied customers and employees are a recurring long-term source of value.
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This article by Kenneth W. Freeman , from the continually excellent Strategy+Business, lays out three strategic principles of making an acquisition:
Don’t do the deal for the deal’s sake.
Never make more deals than your company can fully digest or integrate at one time.
And be certain that you can create shareholder value from the acquisition within the first year.
and four operating principles after the acquisition:
Serve all customers without disruption.
Treat every employee with fairness, dignity, and respect.
Move with deliberate speed.
Learn from each other.
Key grab: Remember, synergies are realized only once, whereas satisfied customers and employees are a recurring long-term source of value.
