Merger, Acquisition & Divestment
The M&A Service combines enterprise architecture with business management consulting techniques to undertake a rapid but comprehensive study of a proposed structural change (merger, acquisition, divestment or non-commercial integration or separation).
Enterprise architecture provides a common framework and vocabulary, which we use to assess the capabilities of all business impacted by the change. This approach highlights areas of strong alignment and synergy but also exposes gaps, dependencies and areas of contention and duplication.
Techniques borrowed from business management consulting are then used to explore each area of capability in turn, building up a rich 360-degree view of the proposal.
Why Would You Need This Service?
Whether the goal is to increase market share or to expand into new markets, mergers and acquisitions always carry risk, prompting CEOs to seek answers:
- Will these businesses complement each other or are there conflicts?
- What will it take to integrate these businesses and when we realise the benefits?
Driven by a desire to generate funds or to focus a complex business, divestments also raise questions:
- What are the specific challenges will we face?
- How will the remaining business be impacted; what are we losing?
EAL understands that structural changes to any business require careful consideration and detailed planning. Decisions must be based on evidence and clear insights. Our approach is look beyond traditional due diligence, to remove the unknowns, expose the risks and shed light on the challenges and opportunities ahead.
How We Deliver This Service
This M&A service is completed in phases, over a four to eight-week period. Stakeholder involvement throughout is essential.
EAL can deliver the service directly to the CEO or executive board; or, we can work in partnership with your internal audit function or a trusted business management consultancy.
Phases of service delivery:
Initiation: captures the business context along with general and specific drivers for the exercise; also fixes the scope;
Preliminary analysis: establishes the architecture framework to be used throughout; also identifies named points-of-contact and sources of information;
Discovery: generates the core data for the exercise by mapping, describing and then assessing the capabilities of each business; depending on the agreed scope, this may be limited to business and/or IT capabilities;
Analysis: interpretation of the findings, applying consultative techniques; presentation of the outputs to senior stakeholders.
Deliverables
Enterprise architectures: A common architecture framework, aligned to three businesses: the business which is the subject of the M&A activity and your business before and then after the change has completed. We will use our world recognised BLEAM™ (benefits led enterprise architecture framework) to deliver the outputs required to provide the information required for analysis;
Analysis: Building on the enterprise architecture, we complete multiple structured exercises including PACE, SWOT and RAID. Findings are collated and enriched with narrative around key risks and decision-points;
Typical Outcomes
Organisations enter into structural change knowing that no amount of due diligence will remove all risk. EAL’s M&A Service has nevertheless been used successfully by our clients to remove uncertainty and so make risk manageable.
Case Studies
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Contact Us to Get Started
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