Winning at Mergers and Acquisitions : The Guide to Market-Focused Planning and Integration

Last year more than 7,000 mergers and acquisitions were completed, with a collective price tag estimated at more than $800 billion. And although they are known as highly effective means of achieving corporate growth and strategic advantage, these transactions are fraught with pitfalls: Statistics indicate that a third of these deals will fail and another third will not bear out the expectations of the merger partners. What can businesses looking to undertake strategic mergers and acquisitions do to ensure that they do not fall victim to confusion, multimillion dollar losses, declining market share and profits, or any number of other negative results of failed transactions? The answers are in Winning at Mergers and Acquisitions, a pioneering step by step guide to growth driven planning and swift, effective post merger integration. Challenging the conventional emphasis on cost reduction synergies, this book presents the authors ground breaking blueprint for mergers that yield strategic synergies and high returns in meeting long term growth, increased market share, and revenue generation objectives. Mark Clemente and David Greenspan explore in detail the marketing, sales, and organizational issues that are vital aspects of successful M&A ventures. They take executives through the entire strategic M&A process from setting objectives, to evaluating target companies, to aligning corporate cultures in an effort to ensure problem free integration. They show how to maintain a sharp focus on the markets that will be reached by the merger and they offer invaluable advice on charting a steady course through the often tumultuous period of integration, when organizational chaos can cause the merged company to lose momentum, market share, and the backing of customers, prospects, and shareholders. Winning at Mergers and Acquisitions is essential reading for CEOs, managers, deal makers, and others looking to capitalize on one of the most important methods of effecting corporate growth in business today while staying focused on the people, product, and process issues that power that growth.