M&A Center of Excellence

Improve the return on investment post-close. Execute deals more efficiently and reduce costs. Repository of knowledge at your disposal.

Play by

Philip Pratt

Director, Acquisition Integration at Corning Incorporated

About the play

Reasons to create an M&A Center of Excellence

If your organization has an active deal portfolio
If your deals have recurring similarities
Leveraging past knowledge is crucial for deal success
M&A is a huge part of your growth strategy

An M&A Center of Excellence can provide critical benefits to deal teams, such as helping your team to improve the return on investment post-close. It can help you execute deals more efficiently (and for reduced costs) because you have a repository of knowledge at your disposal. Repeat mistakes can be avoided and allow you to capture lessons learned on every deal to improve future transactions.

Preparation

In order to use this play to create an M&A Center of Excellence, you need to develop the initial concept of what you want your center to look like and secure buy-in from your practitioners and stakeholders.

You also need to prepare your repository box of knowledge and make sure that you have dedicated people continuously maintaining it before you can actually launch the center. It is also vital that you train people on how to use the center so that everyone can receive maximum value from it.

People

Every willing M&A practitioner in your organization

Difficulty

Difficult

Materials

Team collaboration, Database, Playbooks, Computer

Time

2-3 months

Running the Play:

Developing the Initial Concept

Define the mission and vision of your center. Everyone involved should have internal alignment on what it is you are trying to achieve. Your center could focus on one phase of a deal, or even end-to-end. You have to clearly define the vision so you can also identify the people that you want to work with.

Getting Buy-in

After identifying the key people that can help you, you need to get their commitment. Building a center requires a lot of time and effort, and it is your responsibility to get those involved excited about the benefits of having a center.

Repository Box

Develop or choose a database system where all the knowledge and information for the center will be stored. It has to be intuitive and easy-to-use because there will be copious amounts of data stored there and team members will need to be able to access the information easily.

One of the most important aspects of a center is maintaining this repository box of knowledge. You have to continuously update the database with best practices and new lessons learned, and some tools need more frequent updates than others. Assign core team members to be specifically responsible for maintaining and updating the information in the center.

Launching

Launch your center so that everyone can start reaping the benefits. Communication is vital. Let your team members know that the M&A Center of Excellence is up and running. You have to educate the center’s users about the benefits and provide directions on how to use it.

Training

You also need to develop a curriculum and train your teams, business leaders, and pretty much anyone who will be using the center. It is essential to educate them on what tools you have, how to find them, and who to go to for additional support.