Throughout my blog I’ve stressed the importance of carefully planning your business strategy. While planning is important, your plan to buy, no matter how well crafted, is only as good as the people who execute it. Acquisition is a team sport for two reasons. Practically speaking, buying a company involves multiple skills—more than any single …
Tag: acquisition
Six Key Questions in Negotiation
Before you enter negotiation with an acquisition prospect, there are six key questions you and your acquisition team should answer: 1) What is the “big picture”? The key here is to have just one strategic reason for acquisition that you developed at the beginning of the acquisition process. 2) What elements of the “owner’s equation” …
From Markets To Prospects: “Taking The Emotion Out”
When you’re on the path of acquisition, there’s a shift that happens when you turn from the bigger strategic questions to looking at individual prospects. Now you’re dealing with real companies and real people. At this point, I have noticed that acquisition teams tend to become much more emotionally involved—sometimes to the detriment of the …
How Long Does an Acquisition Take?
As you consider acquisition as a route to growth, you may be wondering: How long will the whole process take? This is one of the most frequent questions I hear when laying out an acquisition plan. The answer is never easy to pin down. I’ve worked on acquisitions that were completed in a month, while …
Growth Pathway # 5: Pursue External Growth
The fifth and final pathway to growth is external growth. Here, expansion is achieved by engaging with entities outside your company. There are many forms of engagement, of which acquisition is but one. External growth can be one of the most exciting paths to growth and in many cases, it should top your list of …
Five Pathways to Growth
As you focus your attention on the growth of your company, there are five key pathways to consider: Grow Organically Exit the Market Be the Low-Cost Provider Do Nothing Pursue External Growth Before you even start planning an acquisition, remember there are other growth options available. It is an important realization that you do have …
